Melonie.

You might look at:

Lucy, Sam
2007 The Archaeology of Age. In Archaeology of Identity, edited by
Margarita Díaz-Andreu, Sam Lucy, Staša Babič and David N. Edwards, pp.
43-66. Routledge, New York.

Hope things are going well for you,
Dave

On Mon, Oct 5, 2015 at 3:51 PM, Denis Gojak <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I studied a small Australian village established in the mid 1830s
> southwest of Sydney.  Three decades later the main railway came
> through, but crossed the road about 5 km way and established a
> railhead while the next section of line was built.  Rapidly
> businesses, services and eventually much of the population drifted
> north.   Very quickly the old village became dominated by
> female-headed households.  I think many of them would have been
> elderly, either widowed or with husbands in itinerant and mobile
> trades like shearing.
> In this case being elderly was very tightly bound up with economic
> marginalisation, which also had a good dollop of gender inequity.
> Being elderly would manifest in 'poverty' patterns across assemblages
> or at even broader indicators like cross-generational property
> succession and what different things happen between long periods of
> stasis versus occupant change.
> And on an entirely different note, our village was occupied by the
> Worlds Oldest Couple [http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article120724427
> [1]].
> In fact they weren't [92 and 89 years old, as opposed to the article's
> 112 and 107].  They lived in the decaying former inn with their son,
> the final publican.  We excavated a privy clearance deposit
> contemporary with the Worlds Oldest Couple but found no marker
> artefacts of old age.
> Denis Gojak
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY"
> To:
> Cc:
> Sent:Mon, 5 Oct 2015 15:03:08 +0000
> Subject:Archaeology of the Elderly
>
>  Hello,
>
>  While there appears to be a growing trend to study childhood, I have
> not been able to find much work on the archaeology of the elderly. In
> connection what do / should we call a study of people in their later
> years? {Try searching archaeology and old in the same query!} Can we
> really study the elderly though material culture (non
> osteoarchaeology) or can we only study the process of aging? Any
> thoughts and points in the right direction would be helpful.
>
>  Yours,
>  Melonie Shier
>
>
>
> Links:
> ------
> [1] http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article120724427
>
>