Stable isotope data indicate considerable dietary variation in this population associated with a multiethnic and socially stratified military population. Diets ranged from predominantly C -based to predominantly C -based, with varying inputs of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine animal protein. Comparison with other European populations further denotes the exceptional range of dietary variation of soldiers and camp followers in Napoleon's army.

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Objectives The aim of this study was to investigate how much variation in adult stature and body mass can be explained by growth disruption among soldiers who served in Napoleon's Grand Army during the Russian Campaign of 1812. Methods Linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) were recorded as representations of early life growth disruption, while the impact on future growth was assessed using maximum femur length (n = 73) as a proxy for stature and maximum femoral head diameter (n = 25) as a proxy for body mass. LEH frequency, severity, age at first formation, and age at last formation served as explanatory variables in a multiple regression analysis to test the effect of these variables on maximum femur length and maximum femoral head diameter. Results The multiple regression model produced statistically significant results for maximum femur length (F‐statistic = 3.05, df = 5 and 67, P = .02), with some variation in stature (adjusted r2 = 0.13) attributable to variation in growth disruption. The multiple regression model for maximum femoral head diameter was not statistically significant (F‐statistic = 1.87, df = 5 and 19, P = .15). Conclusions We hypothesized stress events during early life growth and development would have significant, negative, and cumulative effects on growth outcomes in adulthood. The results did not support our hypothesis. Instead, some variables and interactions had negative effects on stature, whereas others had positive effects. This is likely due to catch‐up growth, the relationship between acute and chronic stress and growth, resilience, and plasticity in human growth over the life course.

Human behavior and human societies are always complex, arguably the most complex social arrangements of any known species, and organized in an infinite number of ways. This organization often relies on cooperation, a form of human interaction that is deeply rooted and at times more useful than working individually (Coelho and McClure 2016; Mead 1937). Mead (1937, 8) defines cooperation as "the act of working together to one end," and cooperative relationships have been at the center of many ethnographic accounts of small-scale communities as well as nation-building attempts (Anderson 1983). Despite this obvious reliance on cooperation, scholars have often ignored cooperation when thinking about large groups in the past. Traditionally, anthropologists and archaeologists have focused on ranked or hierarchical systems of organization built on competitive relationships, imagining a vertical distribution of power, building from small egalitarian bands through vertically arranged states (Service 1962). This focus on hierarchy and a linear progression of social organizations diminishes the diversity of human societies, essentializes human groups in limited stereotypes, and relies on patriarchal and colonial classifications (Appadurai 1988; Henry, Angelbeck, and Rizvi 2017). The flaws in Service's descriptions of power organizations are numerous and apparent, yet this model of power persists. In 1979, Crumley introduced the idea to archaeology that organizational systems can take forms other than control hierarchies, instead suggesting that heterarchy is just as common and works in flux with hierarchy. Heterarchy is