Shannon Edsall

Shannon Edsall is a doctoral student in bioarchaeology at the University of Alabama with interests in joint disease, biomechanics, and stress in prehistoric skeletal remains. In 2013, she earned BA degrees in Anthropology and Technical Writing from Auburn University, and, in 2017, she earned an MA in Anthropology from the University of Alabama under Dr. Keith Jacobi. Her thesis research examined the reliability of using osteoarthritis and entheseal changes as indicators of occupational stress in prehistoric Archaic and Mississippian Native American remains from the Tennessee Valley of north Alabama. For her dissertation, she is expanding her studies of the interactions among joints and their moving parts in response to skeletal stress. She will be examining mummified and skeletal Casma individuals from Middle Horizon/Late Intermediate Period coastal Peru and their stress responses to urbanization and conquest. In addition to research, she has had the privilege of teaching in four-field anthropology, cultural anthropology, and archaeology classes at the University of Alabama as a Graduate Teaching Assistant and of assisting with excavations and osteological research in Alabama, Italy, and Peru.