The Joshua Laerm Academic Support Award is given to students to support their studies in natural history and is provided by the Georgia Museum of Natural History. Read more about the award and the Georgia Museum of Natural History here. Tabitha Dentice is a second-year master’s student pursuing her MA in Anthropology. Her research focuses on weaning practices at the 7th-5th c. BCE Greek colony of Himera in Sicily. Weaning practices can be observed using archaeological chemistry, examining the isotope signatures of collagen from bones and teeth. Tabitha utilizes permanent teeth from Himeran adults to reconstruct successful weaning strategies. She completed a pilot study in the spring of 2025 comparing the weaning trajectories of individuals who survived childhood and those who did not, finding that non-survivors were weaned significantly earlier. Tabitha will use Laerm funds to support her goal of expanding her original sample size to obtain a more complete understanding of weaning practices at Himera. With a larger sample size, it is possible to detect demographic differences in weaning patterns or how they might have changed throughout the colony’s 239-year occupation.
