SharonÌýDeWitte

  • Professor
  • Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Department Chair
  • (PHD
  • PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
  • 2006)
Sharon sitting outside on a bench
Address

Hale 135

Dr. DeWitte is a biological anthropologist in the Institute of Behavioral Science and the Department of Anthropology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She has expertise in paleodemography, paleoepidemiology, and bioarchaeology. Dr. DeWitte is interested in biosocial variation in health in past populations, particularly how factors such as sex, gender, socioeconomic status, migration, developmental stress, and diet affected risks of disease and mortality, how disease shapes population dynamics, and how host and environmental factors affect disease patterns. Using data from human skeletal remains, she examines medieval mortality crises (famine and plague) in European contexts, including the mortality patterns, the demographic and health consequences, and the context of the emergence of the 14th-century plague pandemic commonly referred to as the Black Death. Using archival evidence, she examine health transitions in the context of industrialization and urbanization in historical New York State.
Ìý

Recent Publications:

  • DeWitte SN, Jones EE, Reardon EJ*, and Lewis AJ*. 2026. Gender, sex, and health in urban and rural late 19th-century New York State. American Journal of Biological Anthropology 10.1002/ajpa.70279
  • Kelmelis S, and DeWitte SN. 2026. Developmental stress and the urban-rural health spectrum in medieval Denmark. International Journal of Paleopathology. 53:47-64.
  • Redfern R, DeWitte S, Giles M, Holst M, and Hamilton D. 2026. Regional and temporal differences in disease, trauma and mortality in Iron Age Britain. BioarchaeologyInternational.
  • Anderson AS, and DeWitte SN. 2026. Known unknowns and the osteological paradox: Why bioarchaeology needs agent-based models. International Journal of Paleopathology. 52:32-43.
  • Biehler-Gomez L, Marklein KE, Yaussy SL, Crews DE, DeWitte SN, and Cattaneo C. 2025. Frailty in Milan over the last 2,000 years: A hazards-based and cumulative phenotype approach. American Journal of Biological Anthropology. 187:e70111.
  • DeWitte SN, Beaumont J, Walter BS, Towers JR, and Brennan EJ. 2025. Childhood nutritional stress and later-life health outcomes in medieval England: evidence from incremental dentine analysis. Science Advances. 11:eadw7076.
  • Godde K, DeWitte SN, Beaumont J, Walter BS, Redfern R, and Bekvalac JJ. 2025. Selective mortality during famine and plague events in medieval London. Scientific Reports. 15:27133.
  • DeWitte SN, Jones EE, and Livingston C*. 2025. Health and Mortality in the 19th-Century Rural U.S.: the Second Epidemiological Transition in Madison County, NY. American Journal of Human Biology. 37:e70017.
  • Boldgiv B, Lkhagva A, Edwards SV, Stenseth NC, Bayarsaikhan J, Altangerel D, Usukhjargal D, Dovchin B, Gombobaatar S, Batsaikhan N, Warinner C, Hart I, Galbreath KE, Greiman SE, Malaney JL, Murdoch J, McLean B, DeWitte SN, Manzitto-Tripp E, Chin K, Karim TS, Simpson C, Stevens NJ, Dunnum J, Cook J, and Taylor WTT. 2025. Global natural history infrastructure requires international solidarity, support and investment in local capacity: lessons from Mongolia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 122:e2411232122.
  • Yaussy SL, Marklein KE, DeWitte SN, and Crews DE. 2024. Frailty or resilience? Hazards-based and cumulative phenotype approaches to discerning signals of health inequality by estimated sex in medieval London. Science Advances. 10:doi/10.1126/sciadv.adq5703.
  • Hansen DW*, DeWitte SN, and Slavin P.Ìý2024. Dying of pestilence: Stature and mortality from the Black Death in 14th-century Kyrgyzstan. American Journal of Biological Anthropology. doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.25009.
  • DeWitte SN. 2024. Assessing the existence of the male-female health-survival paradox in the past: dental caries in medieval London. American Journal of Biological Anthropology. 185:e24990.
  • DeWitte SN. 2024. Medieval monastic health: Variation in skeletal signs of inflammation and developmental stress between religious orders in London. American Journal of Human Biology. 36:e24052.
  • Fefferman NH, McAlister JS, Akpa BS, Akwataghibe K, Azad FT, Barkley K, Bleichrodt A, Blum MJ, Bourouiba L, Bromberg Y, Candan KS, Chowell G, Clancey E, Cothran FA, DeWitte SN, Fernandez P, Finnoff D, Flaherty DT, Gibson NL, Harris N, He Q, Lofgren ET, Miller DL, Moody J, Muccio K, Nunn CL, Papes M, Paschalidis IC, Pasquale DK, Reed JM, Rogers MB, Schreiner CL, Strand EB, Swanson CS, Szabo-Rogers HL, Ryan SJ. 2023. A new paradigm for pandemic preparedness. Current Epidemiology Reports. Ìý
  • Wissler A, DeWitte S. 2023. Frailty and survival in the 1918 influenza pandemic. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 120:e2304545120Ìý