Roberta Marino

BSc, MSc

Department of Archaeology

Research Student

Thesis - The mistreatment of children through the lens of neglect and abuse: how can bioarchaeology better approach these issues?

RMarino1@sheffield.ac.uk
Minalloy House

Full contact details

Roberta Marino
Department of Archaeology
Minalloy House
10-16 Regent Street
Sheffield
S1 3NJ
Qualifications

2019 - MSc Biodiversity and Evolution (Bioanthropology pathway) - University of Bologna, Italy (110 cum laude/110).

  • Dissertation - Sex estimation from postcranial metric and morphological features in juvenile skeletons: a reliability test on identified skeletal collections (XIX-XX centuries)

2016 – BSc Biology – University of Palermo, Italy (110 cum laude/110).

  • Dissertation - Anthropological analysis of the Eneolithic remains from tombs T1, T3 and T3 of Mondello, Italy.
Research interests

Thesis - The mistreatment of children through the lens of neglect and abuse: how can bioarchaeology better approach these issues? 

Thesis Abstract

The study of child abuse in the past offers opportunities to explore past perceptions of childhood and childcare and can yield important insights into the lives of past children. The priority placed upon preventing child mistreatment today has led to an increasing appreciation of the ways it both illuminates societal attitudes and impacts individual experiences. This challenges bioarchaeologists to find novel ways to identify these behaviours and their consequences in the past. Past studies exhibited a lack of consistency in their approaches, leading to questions regarding the feasibility and potential of this area of research.


To move forwards, it is crucial to critically explore the extent to which the evidence of the abuse of children in the past might be rendered more visible and its interpretation more reliable. This project will evaluate the potential of a novel interdisciplinary approach that that combines osteological and clinical evidence with radiological and bioengineering data and interprets these data within their historical, archaeological, psychological and socio-cultural context. It takes a multi-scale sample approach, re-evaluating extant cases of suspected child abuse and examining a large medieval and post-medieval dataset (c.901-1900 AD;n=1074) to identify instances of childhood skeletal trauma in order to discover new cases of child abuse in the bioarchaeological record.


By taking an interdisciplinary approach, this project will offer a critical perspective on child abuse in the past, including questioning prior assumptions and expectations around what we mean when we talk about child abuse in the bioarchaeological record. Overall, this project will provide methodological and interpretive theoretical advances in order to reframe and improve the way that we approach the topic of child abuse in the past.

Research Interests Include:

  • Human Osteology
  • Childhood Bioarchaeology 
  • Health and wellbeing of juvenile skeletons
  • Skeletal growth and development
  • Child abuse and mistreatment
  • Skeletal sexual dimorphism
  • Human identification in forensic contexts 
Grants
  • 2021-2024 - White Rose College of Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH) AHRC Studentship, UK.
Teaching activities
  • Autumn 2023 - AAP685 Human Osteology – Laboratory teaching assistant (postgraduate)
  • Spring 2022 - Human Osteology Short Course – Tutor
  • Spring 2022 - BMS352 Forensic Anatomy – Laboratory teaching assistant (undergraduate)
Professional activities and memberships
  • October 2022 – present – Co-Head Editor– Assemblage, The Sheffield Graduate Journal of Archaeology.
  • March 2022 - Present - Team Member - Cranfield Recovery and Identification of Conflict Casualties field team (CRICC) - Joint Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, TERRA Search and CRICC recovery operation in Sicily (17-31 March, 2022).
  • October 2021 – October 2022 - Editor/Social Media Management – Assemblage, The Sheffield Graduate Journal of Archaeology.
  • February 2020 – March 2021- National Civil Service Volunteer - “AVIS” non-profit healthcare organization for blood donation, Palermo, Italy.
  • June 2019 - March 2021 - Volunteer research assistant – ‘LabHomo’ Laboratory of Anthropology and Forensic applications, University of Palermo, Italy.
  • June, July, October 2019 - Volunteer field assistant – Medieval archaeological site of Terravecchia (Caltavuturo, Sicily).
  • March 2019 – April 2019 - Volunteer research assistant - Laboratory of Bioarchaeology and Forensic Osteology of the University of Bologna, Italy.
  • May 2016 - July 2016 - Volunteer museum assistant- Museum of Zoology ‘P. DODERLEIN’ of Palermo, Italy

Memberships

  • EAA – European Association of Archaeologists
  • AAI - Italian Anthropological association and GIGA - Italian Group of Young Anthropologists
  • BABAO - The British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology
  • SSCIP - The Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past
  • BAFA - British Association for Forensic Anthropology
Publications

Journal articles

Marino R., Tanganelli V., Pietrobelli A., Belcastro M.G. (2021). Evaluation of the auricular surface method for subadult sex estimation on Italian modern (19th to 20th c.) identified skeletal collections. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 174(4): 792-803. DOI :10.1002/ajpa.24146

Conference proceedings papers

Marino R., Craig-Atkins E., Millard C., Li X., Jegu M. 2023. An interdisciplinary approach to the study of child abuse in the past: Integrating methods from within and beyond bioarchaeology. Paper presented at the 29th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA): Belfast, Northern Ireland, 30th August - 2nd September 2023 [Talk]. 

Marino R., Craig-Atkins, E., Millard C. 2022. The mistreatment of children through the lens of abuse and neglect: how can bioarchaeology better approach these issues?.14th Annual Conference of the Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past (SSCIP): Madrid, Spain, 8th - 10th November 2022 [Poster].

Marino R., Tanganelli V., Pietrobelli A., Belcastro M.G. 2019. The auricular surface of the ilium as a sex indicator in juvenile skeletons: A validation study in the identified skeletal collections of the University of Bologna (XIX-XX centuries). XXIII Italian Anthropological Association Conference (AAI): Padova, Italy, 4-6 September 2019 [Poster].