Objectives Due to the indelible nature of enamel, bioarchaeologists use linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) to detect early investments in surviving stress and have identified an association between LEH presence and constraints in growth and maintenance as well as an increased susceptibility to future stress events. This study evaluates heterogenous frailty and susceptibility to death in relation to episodes of early life stress, as reflected by LEH presence, in the Ancestral Pueblo Southwest. This study hypothesizes that LEH presence will be associated with decreased survivorship and an increased likelihood of mortality in both samples. Materials and methods This study uses two samples, one from Pueblo Bonito (A.D. 800‐1200; n = 28) and the second from Hawikku (A.D. 1300‐1680; n = 103). Kaplan‐Meier survival analysis with a log‐rank test was used to evaluate the effect of LEH presence on survivorship for the two samples. Results Survival analysis reveals statistically significant differences in mortality risk between individuals with and without LEH for the Hawikku sample, but no significant differences for the Pueblo Bonito sample. Conclusion The results demonstrate differences in the response to early life stress at the Hawikku and Pueblo Bonito sites, likely reflecting context. The Pueblo Bonito sample represents a high‐status group, and survival following LEH may be the result of cultural buffering. Hawikku dates to a period associated with increased levels of disease and malnutrition as well as Spanish colonization. This environment may have exacerbated mortality risk for individuals in the region who survived early life stress and signifies the consequences of European colonialism in the New World.

Bioarchaeology is inherently interdisciplinary, but there is room to expand collaboration and dialogue with scholars in other fields, particularly if we want our work to benefit living people. One way to promote interdisciplinarity is through broader adoption of measures used in related fields. Given our own interests in health and well-being, here we describe applications of pubertal timing, which has been shown to reflect living conditions. By studying something that is assessed routinely in living populations, we can better connect the patterns found in skeletal assemblages to those observed in historical data and among living people. This will facilitate fruitful dialogue with human biologists, clinicians, economists, and scholars in other fields. Further, bioarchaeologists face major limitations when attempting to reconstruct health and well-being in the past, including heterogeneous frailty, selective mortality, and the generally low specificity and sensitivity of skeletal stress markers. There is thus a need to expand the toolkit of informative skeletal markers available to bioarchaeologists to improve our studies of these phenomena in the past. Promising variables, to that end, are those indicative of pubertal timing. This paper describes how pubertal timing is assessed, the factors that potentially affect it, how variation in pubertal timing is linked to health outcomes, and its potential use to evaluate biological and social conditions in past populations.   La bioarqueología es intrínsicamente interdisciplinaria. Sin embargo, existe todavía la posibilidad de incrementar el diálogo y la colaboración entre investigadores y académicos de otras disciplinas; particularmente si queremos que nuestras investigaciones favorezcan a los seres vivos. Una de las maneras de promover la interdisciplinariedad es adoptar las medidas utilizadas en campos semejantes. Debido a nuestro interés en la salud y el bienestar, este estudio describe las aplicaciones de los tiempos de desarrollo puberal, que según se ha demostrado refleja las condiciones de las personas en vida. Al investigar los parámetros que son asesorados rutinariamente en poblaciones vivientes, se pueden hacer conexiones entre los patrones obtenidos de las colecciones de restos óseos, así también como los observados en las documentaciones históricas y en los mismos seres vivos. Esto facilitará el diálogo productivo entre biólogos humanos, médicos clínicos, economistas, e investigadores de otras disciplinas. Asimismo, los bioarqueólogos se enfrentan a grandes limitaciones al tratar de reconstruir la salud y el bienestar del pasado, incluyendo fragilidades heterogéneas, mortalidad selectiva, y las especificidades y sensibilidades generales de los indicadores óseos de estrés. Por lo tanto, para mejorar los estudios sobre estos fenómenos del pasado, existe la necesidad de expandir la selección actual de métodos a disposición de los bioarqueólogos para estudiar los indicadores óseos informativos. Las variables que tienen el mayor potencial son las que indican los tiempos de desarrollo de pubertad. Esta investigación describe como los intervalos de desarrollo puberal son evaluados, los factores que potencialmente los afectan, como la variación en los tiempos de desarrollo puberal, están correlacionados con estados de salud posteriores y su uso potencial para evaluar condiciones biológicas y sociales de poblaciones pasadas.