RESEARCH ARTICLE Body size and social status in medieval Alba (Cuneo), Italy Nicole M. Weiss 1 | Giuseppe Vercellotti 1,2 | Rosa Boano 3 | Marilena Girotti 3 | Sam D. Stout 1 1 Department of Anthropology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 2 Division of Health Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 3 Department of Life Sciences and Systems Biology, University of Turin, Torino, Italy Correspondence Nicole M. Weiss, Department of Anthropology, 4034 Smith Laboratory, 174 W 18th Ave, Columbus OH, 43210. Email: weiss.483@osu.edu Funding information None. Abstract Objectives: Previous work by Vercellotti et al. in 2011 found significant status-related differ- ences in body size in males but not in females from the Italian bioarchaeological assemblage of San Michele di Trino (8th–14th centuries CE). The purpose of the present work is twofold: (a) to determine if status-related body size differences could be observed in the nearby collection of San Lorenzo di Alba (7th–15th centuries CE) and (b) to add to the emerging narrative of medie- val Italians. Materials and Methods: Osteometric data (maximum length for the humerus, radius, ulna, femur, tibia, and fibula; bicondylar length of the femur, condylo-malleolar length of the tibia, foot height, maximum vertebral heights, and basion-bregma height) were collected for 50 (20 female, 30 male) individuals from Alba, and Monte Carlo analysis was used to assess differences in skeletal element size, skeletal height, living stature, and body mass across sex and status. Results: Significant differences were detected between high status and low status males in Alba for radial maximum length (p = 0.013), tibial maximum length (p = 0.011), tibial condylo- malleolar length (p = 0.012), skeletal height estimated from condylo-malleolar tibial length (p = 0.002), and stature estimated from condyle-malleolar tibial length with the age component (p = 0.003). In contrast, no significant status-based differences were observed between female subsamples (p > 0.05). Discussion: The patterns of intrapopulation variation observed at Alba are similar but not as pronounced as those observed at Trino, suggesting that overall life conditions experienced by the two groups were comparable. KEYWORDS bioarchaeology, socioeconomic status, stature 1 | INTRODUCTION A considerable amount of research in biological anthropology has focused on elucidating the relationship between body size and life conditions experienced by past people (Larsen, 2015; Roberts & Manchester, 2007; Vercellotti, 2012; Vercellotti et al., 2014; Vercel- lotti, Stout, Boano, & Sciulli, 2011; Zakrzewski, 2003). In bioarchaeolo- gical research, body size typically refers to an individual's stature and body mass, but it may also be analyzed on proxies for these variables, such as the length, height, breadth, or diameter of particular skeletal elements (i.e., body size parameters). Body size parameters have the advantage of being more readily available than the overall variables they represent and are therefore used by biological anthropologists to examine a variety of problems and research questions. For example, the relationship between the size of certain skeletal elements and total height can be used to estimate stature, as is done in bioarchaeo- logical and forensic contexts (Auerbach & Ruff, 2010; Sciulli, Schneider, & Mahaney, 1990; Sládek, Machá cek, Ruff, Schuplerová, & Přichystalová, 2015; Vercellotti, Agnew, Justus, & Sciulli, 2009; Wil- son, Herrmann, & Meadows Jantz, 2010). Stature has also been used more broadly as a proxy for health and overall life conditions in the past (Larsen, 2015; Saunders & Received: 23 August 2018 Revised: 17 November 2018 Accepted: 18 December 2018 DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.23776 Am J Phys Anthropol. 2019;1–11. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ajpa © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1