Bioarchaeological Studies of Life in the Age of Agriculture

Bioarchaeological Studies of Life in the Age of Agriculture PDF Author: Patricia M. Lambert
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 081731007X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
Investigations of skeletal remains from key archaeological sites reveal new data and offer insights on prehistoric life and health in the Southeast. The shift from foraging to farming had important health consequences for prehistoric peoples, but variations in health existed within communities that had made this transition. This new collection draws on the rich bioarchaeological record of the Southeastern United States to explore variability in health and behavior within the age of agriculture. It offers new perspectives on human adaptation to various geographic and cultural landscapes across the entire Southeast, from Texas to Virginia, and presents new data from both classic and little-known sites. The contributors question the reliance on simple cause-and-effect relationships in human health and behavior by addressing such key bioarchaeological issues as disease history and epidemiology, dietary composition and sufficiency, workload stress, patterns of violence, mortuary practices, and biological consequences of European contact. They also advance our understanding of agriculture by showing that uses of maize were more varied than has been previously supposed. Representing some of the best work being done today by physical anthropologists, this volume provides new insights into human adaptation for both archaeologists and osteologists. It attests to the heterogeneous character of Southeastern societies during the late prehistoric and early historic periods while effectively detailing the many factors that have shaped biocultural evolution.

Bioarchaeological Studies of Life in the Age of Agriculture

Bioarchaeological Studies of Life in the Age of Agriculture PDF Author: Patricia M. Lambert
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 081731007X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 299

Get Book Here

Book Description
Investigations of skeletal remains from key archaeological sites reveal new data and offer insights on prehistoric life and health in the Southeast. The shift from foraging to farming had important health consequences for prehistoric peoples, but variations in health existed within communities that had made this transition. This new collection draws on the rich bioarchaeological record of the Southeastern United States to explore variability in health and behavior within the age of agriculture. It offers new perspectives on human adaptation to various geographic and cultural landscapes across the entire Southeast, from Texas to Virginia, and presents new data from both classic and little-known sites. The contributors question the reliance on simple cause-and-effect relationships in human health and behavior by addressing such key bioarchaeological issues as disease history and epidemiology, dietary composition and sufficiency, workload stress, patterns of violence, mortuary practices, and biological consequences of European contact. They also advance our understanding of agriculture by showing that uses of maize were more varied than has been previously supposed. Representing some of the best work being done today by physical anthropologists, this volume provides new insights into human adaptation for both archaeologists and osteologists. It attests to the heterogeneous character of Southeastern societies during the late prehistoric and early historic periods while effectively detailing the many factors that have shaped biocultural evolution.

Bioarchaeology

Bioarchaeology PDF Author: Clark Spencer Larsen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316239586
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 657

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Book Description
Now including numerous full colour figures, this updated and revised edition of Larsen's classic text provides a comprehensive overview of the fundamentals of bioarchaeology. Reflecting the enormous advances made in the field over the past twenty years, the author examines how this discipline has matured and evolved in fundamental ways. Jargon free and richly illustrated, the text is accompanied by copious case studies and references to underscore the central role that human remains play in the interpretation of life events and conditions of past and modern cultures. From the origins and spread of infectious disease to the consequences of decisions made by humans with regard to the kinds of foods produced, and their nutritional, health and behavioral outcomes. With local, regional, and global perspectives, this up-to-date text provides a solid foundation for all those working in the field.

Bioarchaeology

Bioarchaeology PDF Author: Jane E Buikstra
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1315432927
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 629

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Book Description
The core subject matter of bioarchaeology is the lives of past peoples, interpreted anthropologically. Human remains, contextualized archaeologically and historically, form the unit of study. Integrative and frequently inter-disciplinary, bioarchaeology draws methods and theoretical perspectives from across the sciences and the humanities. Bioarchaeology: The Contextual Study of Human Remains focuses upon the contemporary practice of bioarchaeology in North American contexts, its accomplishments and challenges. Appendixes, a glossary and 150 page bibliography make the volume extremely useful for research and teaching.

The Global History of Paleopathology

The Global History of Paleopathology PDF Author: Jane E. Buikstra
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195389808
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 817

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Book Description
The first comprehensive global history of the discipline of paleopathology

Bioarchaeology of East Asia

Bioarchaeology of East Asia PDF Author: Kate Pechenkina
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813045010
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 535

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Book Description
Interprets human skeletal collections from a region where millets, rice, and several other important cereals were cultivated, leading to attendant forms of agricultural development that were accompanied by significant technological innovations. The contributors follow the diffusion of these advanced ideas to other parts of Asia, and unravel a maze of population movements. In addition, they explore the biological implications of relatively rare subsistence strategies more or less unique to East Asia: millet agriculture, mobile pastoralism with limited cereal farming, and rice farming combined with reliance on marine resources.

The Bioarchaeology of Virginia Burial Mounds

The Bioarchaeology of Virginia Burial Mounds PDF Author: Debra L. Gold
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817351442
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
A long-ignored prehistoric mound building people By the 14th century more than a dozen accretional burial mounds—reaching heights of 12 to 15 feet—marked the floodplains of interior Virginia. Today, none of these mounds built by the nearly forgotten Monacan Indians remain on the landscape, having been removed over the centuries by a variety of natural and cultural causes. This study uses what remains of the mounds—excavated from the 1890s to the 1980s— to gain a new understanding of the Monacans and to gauge their importance in the realm of the late prehistoric period in the Eastern Woodlands. Based on osteological examinations of dozens of complete skeletons and thousands of isolated bones and bone fragments, this work constructs information on Monacan demography, diet, health, and mortuary ritual in the 10th through the 15th centuries. The results show an overall pattern of stability and local autonomy among the Late Woodland village societies of interior Virginia in which a mixture of maize farming and the collection of wild food resources were successful for more than 600 years. This book—uniting biological and cultural aspects of the data for a holistic understanding of everyday life in the period—will be of interest to ethnohistorians, osteologists, bioarchaeologists, and anyone studying Late Woodland, Mississippian, and contact periods, as well as middle range societies, in the Eastern Woodlands.

Skeletons in Our Closet

Skeletons in Our Closet PDF Author: Clark Spencer Larsen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691218013
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
The dead tell no tales. Or do they? In this fascinating book, Clark Spencer Larsen shows that the dead can speak to us--about their lives, and ours--through the remarkable insights of bioarchaeology, which reconstructs the lives and lifestyles of past peoples based on the study of skeletal remains. The human skeleton is an amazing storehouse of information. It records the circumstances of our growth and development as reflected in factors such as disease, stress, diet, nutrition, climate, activity, and injury. Bioarchaeologists, by combining the methods of forensic science and archaeology, along with the resources of many other disciplines (including chemistry, geology, physics, and biology), "read" the information stored in bones to understand what life was really like for our human ancestors. They are unearthing some surprises. For instance, the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture approximately 10,000 years ago has commonly been seen as a major advancement in the course of human evolution. However, as Larsen provocatively shows, this change may not have been so positive. Compared to their hunter-gatherer ancestors, many early farmers suffered more disease, had to work harder, and endured a poorer quality of life due to poorer diets and more marginal living conditions. Moreover, the past 10,000 years have seen dramatic changes in the human physiognomy as a result of alterations in our diet and lifestyle. Some modern health problems, including obesity and chronic disease, may also have their roots in these earlier changes. Drawing on vivid accounts from his own experiences as a bioarchaeologist, Larsen guides us through some of the key developments in recent human evolution, including the adoption of agriculture, the arrival of Europeans in the Americas and the biological consequences of this contact, and the settlement of the American West in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Written in a lively and engaging manner, this book is for anyone interested in what the dead have to tell us about the living.

Shot in Alabama

Shot in Alabama PDF Author: Frances Osborn Robb
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 081731878X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 593

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Book Description
A sumptuously illustrated history of photography as practiced in the state from 1839 to 1941 offering a unique account of the birth and development of a significant documentary and artistic medium

Mission Cemeteries, Mission Peoples

Mission Cemeteries, Mission Peoples PDF Author: Christopher M. Stojanowski
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813048516
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
Mission Cemeteries, Mission Peoplesoffers clear, accessible explanations of complex methods for observing evolutionary effects in populations. Christopher Stojanowski's intimate knowledge of the historical, archaeological, and skeletal data illuminates the existing narrative of diet, disease, and demography in Spanish Florida and demonstrates how the intracemetery analyses he employs can provide likely explanations for issues where the historical information is either silent or ambiguous. Stojanowski forgoes the traditional broad analysis of Native American populations and instead looks at the physical person who lived in the historic Southeast. What did that person eat? Did he suffer from chronic diseases? With whom did she go to a Spanish church? Where was she buried in death? The answers to these questions allow us to infer much about the lives of mission peoples.

Epidemics and Enslavement

Epidemics and Enslavement PDF Author: Paul Kelton
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803215576
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Tracing the pathology of early European encounters with Native peoples of the Southeast, this work concludes that, while indigenous peoples suffered from an array of ailments before contact, Natives had their most significant experience with new germs long after initial contacts in the sixteenth century.