The presence of these markers in a significant proportion of the Cahokia skeletal sample suggests that childhood at Cahokia was not free from the health challenges that affected growing populations in pre-antibiotic, pre-vitamin-supplement environments.

The distribution of these stress markers across different parts of the skeletal sample — different burial contexts, different areas of the site — shows patterns consistent with the social stratification that other lines of evidence suggest.

Individuals buried in higher-status contexts tend to show fewer stress markers than those in lower-status contexts, suggesting that access to adequate nutrition and protection from illness was unequally distributed in ways that tracked with social position.

Children’s objects — toys, miniature pottery, objects that were clearly made for or by children — appear in the archaeological record and provide a more intimate glimpse of daily life than the monumental architecture or the elite mortuary assemblages.