Mary Lewis

Mary is happy to discuss proposals for postgraduate research in any area of bioarchaeology, but especially palaeopathology and non-adult/ adolescent osteology. For further information, please contact m.e.lewis@reading.ac.uk.

Mary has supervised students on a variety of topics in bioarchaeology (forensic anthropology, adult ageing and the life course, urbanisation and health, puberty assessment; Roman transitions). She currently supervises the following postgraduate projects:

• David Bennett-Jones: Can macroscopic examination of skeletal remains, supplemented by radiography, differentiate nutritional vitamin D deficiency from that due to underlying medical conditions?
• Eleanor Chipps (with Prof Eckardt & Dr Antoine and Vandenbeusch (BM): AHRC CDP Studentship): Children in the afterlife: the mummification and funerary treatment of non-adults in ancient Egypt
• Jack Eggington (SWW-AHRC student, with Dr Mueldner): Diet, health, and social inequality in industrial England: a mother-infant perspective
• Paige Falco (International student): Investigating the presences of air pollution in Romano British populations and its impacts on health utilizing palaeopathology and trace element analysis
• Lily Garnett (with Prof Eckardt, & Dr Brace (NHM), Reading-NHM Studentship): Blood lines: a social, paleopathological and biomolecular examination of the impact of thalassemia in Romano-British Poundbury Camp, Dorset
• Ellen Green (with Prof Garrow): Dead in a ditch: a taphonomic examination of human and animal remains deposited in non-formal funerary contexts in S E England during the late Iron-Age and early Roman periods.
• Paul Klostermann ( External, with Prof Eggers, university of Vienna): Adolescence in Early Medieval Austria, A Bioarchaeological Study of Pubertal Timing in Human Remains
• Tom Mills: (with Prof Lawrence): 'Be Thou Dead to the World, but Alive unto God': defining the diagnosis and evolution of leprosy using the evidence of child and adult skeletal remains.
• Rebecca Pitt (with Prof Eckardt): Investigating the impact the Roman conquest had on Iron Age people’s health through examining perinatal, infant and maternal health.

Previous graduates include:

• Florencia Botta (International student, with Dr Mueldner): An evaluation of the impact of famine and plague on childhood stress and adult health in medieval England. Submitted.
• Sophia Mills: Ageing and the Aged: the social and physical implications of senescence AD 900-1550. Graduated 2023. Sophia is a sessional lecturer in forensic archaeology.
• Jennifer Austen (International student): Cribra orbitalia, cribra humeralis and cribra femoralis: understanding their aetiology. Graduated 2022.
• Emily Carroll (SWW DTP Studentship, with Dr Mueldner): No smoke without fire: cremation practices in Late Iron Age and Roman Hertfordshire. Funerary responses to cultural, social and technological transitions. Graduated 2020. Emily is a freelance osteologist.
• Sasha-Ray Valme (International student): Adolescence and the Age of Puberty in Post-Medieval England. Graduated 2019.
• Candace McGovern (International student): Coming of Age as a Woman in Roman Britain: physical development and the life course from puberty through adulthood. Graduated 2019.
• Cecilia Collins (International student): Upper Respiratory Tract Disease in a Medieval Icelandic Population." Graduated 2019.
• Anna Rohnbogner (AHRC-funded Student, with Professor Eckardt): Dying young: a palaeopathological analysis of child health in Roman Britain. Graduated 2015.
• Petra Verlinden (Leverhulme Trust-funded student): Child's Play? A new methodology for the identification of trauma in non-adult skeletal remains.Graduated 2015. Petra is a Technical officer at Johnson Matthey
• Rebecca Watts (AHRC Studentship): Childhood development and adult longevity in archaeological populations from medieval and post-Medieval England (AD 950-1855). Graduated 2014. Rebecca is a Lecturer in Bioarchaeology at UCL.
• Margaret Andrews (with Dr Gabor Thomas): The palaeopathology of the Romano-British to early Medieval Transition in Southern Britain. Graduated 2014. Margaret is a General Medical Practitioner.
• Ceri Falys (International student, AHRC Studentship): Extending the Life Course: developing new methods for identifying the elderly in the archaeological record. Graduated 2012. Ceri is the Head Osteoarchaeologist at TVAS, Reading.
• Justine Tracey (with Professor Richard Bradley): Cultural behaviour or Natural Processes? A review of Southern Britain Iron Age Skeletal Remains. Graduated 2011. Justine works as a civil servant.
• Maria Jelaca-Tavakoli (International student): A forensic approach to estimation of stature from dimensions of the skeletonised lumbar and sacral spine. Graduated 2008. Maria teaches Anthropology at Southwestern College, California.