Alex Tutwiler is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Archaeology

More information about Alex Tutwiler

Office days

Monday to Friday

Research

Alex Tutwiler’s primary research interests involve reconstructing the narrative of children in the osteoarchaeological record. Her PhD research focuses specifically on child labour practices during the post-medieval (1650-1850 AD) industrial boom seen across Europe. Alex aims to build a comprehensive profile of the ways in which child labour presents itself within the osteoarchaeological record through analysing assemblages from localities with documented labour practices.

Through juxtaposing individuals from industrial and agricultural communities, Alex will analyse the specific impacts that labour types had on the lived experiences of children during the post-medieval industrial boom in The Netherlands.
While child labour may appear to be an issue of the past, UNICEF reports that the number of children involved in labour practices globally increased for the first time since the year 2000 due to the recent Coronavirus pandemic (UNICEF, 2021). Through assessing the manifestation of child labour in the osteoarchaeological record, a greater understanding of the longstanding health implications of modern child labour practices can be reached.

Curriculum vitae

Alex Tutwiler (MSc) received a bachelor’s degree in Earth Sciences and Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2020. She joined the Faculty of Archaeology at the University of Sheffield in 2020 to pursue a Master of Sciences in Human Osteology and Funerary Archaeology, from which she graduated with merit in 2021 with a thesis assessing the dietary habits of a 14th century ecclesiastical community in Lincolnshire, England. Before starting her PhD at Leiden University in 2022, Alex served as a laboratory supervisor for the zooarchaeology course in the Department of Anthropology at UC Santa Cruz.