Concluding Thoughts: Small Beginnings, Significant Outcomes

This chapter situates the contributions in this volume within a social bioarchaeological and theoretically informed approach, central to this book series’ theme. This volume highlights the value of a cross-disciplinary approach to the investigation of the mother-infant nexus in archaeology and anthropology. Future areas of research development on this topic should include an incorporation of social anthropological and sociological theory within bioarchaeology, and a move away from an infant—or child—centric approach to a consideration of the foetal, infant, and child relationships within the wider biocultural context in which they are embedded. Much of the work in this volume has been stimulated by the contributors’ lived experience of the critical importance of the biosocial connections between mother and baby. The increased research emphasis on the mother-infant nexus and acknowledgement of the significant outcomes that this has for both mother and child health illustrate that this as an emergent topic for anthropology.