Gradcast

In this week’s episode, hosts Krishna Pereira and Anthony Cruz interview Sydney Holland, a second-year PhD student in Anthropology at Western University. Sydney’s research focuses on bioarchaeology, using human remains such as teeth and bones to study life in the past. Sydney Holland explores the lives of past communities through the lens of bioarchaeology. Her research focuses on how infant feeding practices—particularly breastfeeding and weaning—shaped survival, health, and social dynamics in early modern populations. For her master’s work, Sydney studied skeletal remains from a 17th–18th century rural community near Montreal. By analyzing teeth and bones, she investigated how families navigated feeding decisions, such as the use of wet nurses, the timing of weaning, and responses to food scarcity. These practices left measurable traces in the skeletons, providing unique insights into daily life and challenges faced by families. Using stable isotope analysis, Sydney revealed that variations in infant feedin