| Summary: | Yes === Breastfeeding is known to be a powerful mediator of maternal and
childhood health, with impacts throughout the lifecourse. Paleodietary
studies of the past thirty years have accordingly taken an enduring
interest in the health and diet of young children as a potential indicator
of population fertility, subsistence, and mortality patterns. While
progress has been made in recent decades towards acknowledging the
agency of children, many paleodietary reconstructions have failed to
incorporate developments in cognate disciplines revealing synergistic
dynamics between maternal and offspring biology. Central to this
understanding has been heavy reliance on the “weanling’s dilemma”, in
which infants are thought to face a bleak choice between loss of
immunity or malnutrition. Using a review of immunological and
epidemiological evidence for the dynamic and supportive role that
breastfeeding plays throughout the complementary feeding period, this
paper offers context and nuance for understanding past feeding
transitions. We suggest that future interpretative frameworks for infant
paleodietary and bioarchaeological research should include a broad
knowledge base that keeps pace with relevant developments outside of
those disciplines. === The full-text of this article will be released for public view at the end of the publisher embargo on 19 Jan 2022.
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