The health of humans is intricately linked to the substances we ingest—both food and nondietary items. Adverse health outcomes related to smoking of such products as tobacco and other psychoactive substances are clearly established in modern populations but are less well understood for ancient communities. Grasping these dynamics is further complicated by the curative, religious, and medicinal context of many of these substances, which have often been commodified, refined, and altered in recent history. As part of a larger collaboration with the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe dedicated to understanding medicinal plant use among Native Californians, this article summarizes new metabolomic data from three Middle- and Late-Period ancestral heritage Ohlone sites: Thámien Rúmmeytak (CA-SCL-128),'Ayttakiš'Éete Hiramwiš Trépam-tak (CA-ALA-677/H), and Síi Túupentak (CA-ALA-565/H). The authors used an ultra-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry platform to analyze chemical residues from 95 human dental calculus samples from 50 burials. Using multivariate statistics, they coanalyzed demographic and skeletal pathology data with chemical residue profiles and considered skeletal markers for a series of oral and postcranial health conditions. Results indicate sex and age biases in consumption patterns. Periodontitis stands out as the most significant local factor for changes in the oral metabolome. However, while chemical markers of oral diseases may be related to pathogen activity, associations between residues and postcranial conditions such as osteoarthritis suggest traditional curative practices and the ingestion of medicinal substances. Hence, this study yields new insights into the broader context of illness and healing in the past.

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of bones and teeth at the ancestral heritage Muwekma Ohlone site of Yakmuy ´Ooyákma-tka (“Place of the East Ridge Site”; CA-SCL-215) reveal significant differences in the dietary life history of males and females. Overall, isotope data indicate that site inhabitants were primarily dependent on low-trophic-level foods, likely plants, and minor amounts of marine food for their main source of dietary protein. From tooth dentin serial samples, we found that males and females were similar for δ¹³C in early childhood (age 1–9 years), but boys were elevated in δ¹⁵N by 0.6–1.0‰ relative to girls, indicating boys were accessing slightly greater amounts of higher-trophic-level foods, such as meat from game. The sex-biased difference in δ¹⁵N diminishes during the second decade of life, as female δ¹⁵N values increase and become equal to males. However, a difference in δ¹³C emerges during the second decade: female δ¹³C values are elevated relative to males. This could indicate that teenage females consumed higher amounts of low-trophic-level, marine-derived protein, such as shellfish. During later adult years the difference in δ¹³C disappears, while males again show an increase in δ¹⁵N relative to females. Although these differences are small, they reveal important sex-biased life history patterns during childhood and adulthood in this ancient community.

Síi Túupentak (CA-SCA-565/H) is a late precontact ancestral Ohlone village and cemetery site in Central California (ca. 540–145 cal. BP). Integration of proteomic, genomic, and osteological analyses provided highly confident biological sex estimates for remains of most individuals at this site (65 of 76), spanning all age groups, from perinatal infants to aged adults. Based on these relatively comprehensive data, it was possible to generate sex-specific Kaplan-Meier survival curves for this burial population of sedentary hunter-gatherers. As was common among societies predating modern Western medicine and antibiotics, infant mortality was high for both males and females. However, male infants (from birth to 5 years of age) appear to have died at nearly twice the rate of female infants (10 of 33 males vs. 5 of 32 females) and had a mean age of survival at birth of only 19 years, compared to 30 years for females. The difference in male and female survival was statistically significant by log-rank test (p = 0.005). Compared to survival curves for other societies predating modern Western medicine and antibiotics, including American-era historical deaths recorded for a cemetery in San Francisco, this bias is larger than might be expected. We suspect the pattern of sex-biased infant mortality at Síi Túupentak could relate to an intrinsic survival advantage for female infants, combined with extrinsic factors such as environmental pathogens, nutritional stress, and gendered differences in weaning patterns detected through stable isotope analyses. Using isotopic data on weaning ages and ethnographic accounts of gendered foraging activities, we focus on the potential role of sex-biased differences in weaning patterns and highlight potential demographic and social implications. Broader application of proteomic and genomic sex estimation would allow sex-biased differences in nutrition and health, as well as social and cultural aspects of male and female life histories, to be compared across a wide range of archaeologically known hunter-gatherer societies.

This article presents new information pertaining to the demographic profile of the juvenile burial assemblage (n = 39) from a Late Holocene site located on the eastern shore of the San Francisco Bay. CA-ALA-329 is commonly referred to as Ryan Mound and now bears the Muwekma Ohlone name Mánni Muwékma KúksúHóowokYatišTúnnešte-tka, which means “place where the people of the kúksú (bighead) pendants are buried.” This site has been extensively studied and has contributed significantly to our understanding of life on the bay during the Middle and Late Periods. However, most of the previous studies have focused on adults. The goal of the present study was to identify patterns in the profiles of those who died prematurely: their sex, the degree of stress they experienced based on skeletal indicators of disease/malnutrition, and their social status based on associated grave goods. Results show high incidence of skeletal indicators in the sample consistent with nutritional deficiency, disease/infection, and/or metabolic disorders. This suggests that this population was experiencing stress. Individual circumstances, such as age and sex, may also have contributed to poor health because infants have the highest prevalence of cribra orbitalia and periostitis. The distribution of wealth, as evidenced by burial goods associated with the sample, shows some correlation with age at death and types of artifacts. Distribution of wealth also differs temporally. Inequality seems to have been highest in the Middle Period, whereas inequality decreased but overall wealth increased into the Late Period.