Staff profile

I have always been fascinated by people. This fascination led me to train as an archaeological scientist: to better understand who they are, what they do, why they do it, and how they vary over time and space. Following an undergraduate degree in anthropology, I pursued my growing passion for bioarchaeology by completing a MSc in Palaeopathology and then a PhD in Archaeology at Durham. My postgraduate degrees gave me excellent training in osteological, palaeopathological, and biogeochemical methodologies, and a huge appreciation of the strengths and limits of these methods. 

Since finishing my PhD, I have contributed to research projects on life in early medieval Northumbria and the bioarchaeology of social and health inequality in Britain, as well as undertaking a teaching fellowship. Most recently, I was awarded a 5 year Wellcome Trust Early Career fellowship to investigate health trade-offs in Roman and early medieval British wetlands, and the role of climate in altering their balance. 

My research interests are varied. I am fascinated by early life development, due to its outsized impact on health throughout later life, and by childhood as a culturally-constructed social stage of life. I also have strong interests in human-landscape interactions and their health impacts, particularly wetland disease ecologies. In all of my research, I am most concerned with the personal and the interpersonal, and how interconnectedness shapes us all. 

I enjoy teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels at Durham, and contribute to modules throughout the department. Outside of Durham, I have for many years served as the Treasurer for the Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past (SSCIP), an interdisciplinary and global society which aims to promote all aspects of the study of childhood in the past.

Education

2019 PhD Archaeology, Durham University

2011 MSc Paleopathology (Distinction), Durham University

2005 BA in Anthropology/Archaeology (magna cum laude), minor in classical studies, Western Washington University

Research Interests

• Childhood health, past and present
• Breastfeeding in the past
• Biogeochemical analyses of bones and teeth to investigate diet, health, and migration
• Isotopic palaeopathology and biomolecular approaches to past disease
• Early medieval Britain
• Postmedieval health
• Wetland culture, stigma, and folklore
• Malaria in Britain

Esteem Indicators

• 2024: Grant Reviewer, UKRI
• 2022: Speaker, York Festival of Ideas, Health Inequality: Roman Britain to Covid Britain
• 2017: Treasurer, Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past
• 2015-present: Reviewer for academic journals: HOMO, International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, PLOS ONE, Antiquity, Bioarchaeology International, American Journal of Biological Anthropology 

Chapter in book

• Stantis, C., & Kendall, E. J. (2023). Isotopes in Paleopathology. In A. L. Grauer (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Paleopathology (118-135). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003130994-8
• Kendall, E. J., & Kendall, R. (2021). Mother-love in the time of malaria: the politics of internal colonisation, endemic disease, and parent-child relations in Britain. In The Family in Past Perspective: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Familial Relationships Through Time (95-115). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429355912-6
• Kendall, E., & Kendall, R. (2021). Family as a unifying framework for understanding past networks of cooperation and interdependence. In E. Kendall, & R. Kendall (Eds.), The Family in Past Perspective: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Familial Relationships Through Time (1-12). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429355912-1
• Kendall, E. J., Millard, A., Beaumont, J., Gowland, R., Gorton, M., & Gledhill, A. (2020). What Doesn’t Kill You: Early Life Health and Nutrition in Early Anglo-Saxon East Anglia. In R. Gowland, & S. Halcrow (Eds.), The Mother-Infant Nexus in Anthropology: Small Beginnings, Significant Outcomes (103-123). Springer Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27393-4_6
• Kendall, E. (2016). The "Terrible Tyranny of the Majority": Recognising Population Variability and Individual Agency in Past Infant Feeding Practices. In L. Powell, W. Southwell-Wright, & R. Gowland (Eds.), Care in the Past: Archaeological and Interdisciplinary Perspectives (39-51). Oxbow Books

Edited book

• Kendall, E. J., & Kendall, R. (Eds.). (2021). The Family in Past Perspective: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Familial Relationships Through Time. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429355912

Journal Article

• Stantis, C., Schaefer, B. J., Correia, M. A., Alaica, A. K., Huffer, D., Plomp, E., Di Giusto, M., Chidimuro, B., Rose, A. K., Nayak, A., & Kendall, E. J. (2025). Ethics and applications of isotope analysis in archaeology. American Journal of Biological Anthropology, 186(1), Article e24992. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24992
• Buckley, H., Petchey, P., Ritchie, N., Kinaston, R., King, C., Geber, J., Matisoo-Smith, E., Snoddy, A. M., Stantis, C., Kendall, E., Nowell, G., & Grocke, D. (2022). 'Buried with his boots on': An integrated life course case-study of a liminal burial from the New Zealand goldrushes. Journal of Pacific Archaeology, 12(2), 92-109
• Kendall, E. J., Brown, A. T., Doran, T., Gowland, R., & Cookson, R. (2021). Health inequality in Britain before 1750. SSM - Population Health, 16, Article 100957. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100957
• Kendall, E. J., Millard, A. R., & Beaumont, J. (2021). The “weanling’s dilemma” revisited: Evolving bodies of evidence and the problem of infant paleodietary interpretation. American journal of physical anthropology, 175(S72), 57-78. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24207
• Kendall, R., Kendall, E., Macleod, I., Gowland, R., & Beaumont, J. (2015). An unusual exostotic lesion of the maxillary sinus from Roman Lincoln. International Journal of Paleopathology, 11, 45-50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpp.2015.09.001
• Kendall, E., Montgomery, J., Evans, J., Stantis, C., & Mueller, V. (2013). Mobility, Mortality, and the Middle Ages: Identification of Migrant Individuals in a 14th Century Black Death Cemetery Population. American journal of physical anthropology, 150(2), 210-222. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.22194