The Bioarchaeology of Disaster

The Bioarchaeology of Disaster PDF Author: Danielle Shawn Kurin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100047898X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
The Bioarchaeology of Disaster examines two dozen disasters occurring around the world over the past 2000 years, ranging from natural and environmental disasters to human conflict and warfare, from epidemics to those of social marginalization—all from a bioarchaeological and forensic anthropological perspective. Each case study provides the social, cultural, historical and ecological context of the disaster and then analyzes evidence of human and related remains in order to better understand the identities of victims, the means, processes, and extent of deaths and injuries. The methods used by specialists to interpret evidence and disagreements among experts are also addressed. It will be helpful in understanding the circumstances of a range of disasters and the multidisciplinary ways in which bioarchaeologists employ empirical methods and analytic frameworks to interpret their impacts and consequences. The book is intended for those in the social and biological sciences, particularly archaeology, forensics, history and ethnography. It will also be of interest to those in medical history and epidemiology, ecological studies, and those involved in disaster response, law enforcement and human rights work.

The Bioarchaeology of Disaster

The Bioarchaeology of Disaster PDF Author: Danielle Shawn Kurin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100047898X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 175

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Bioarchaeology of Disaster examines two dozen disasters occurring around the world over the past 2000 years, ranging from natural and environmental disasters to human conflict and warfare, from epidemics to those of social marginalization—all from a bioarchaeological and forensic anthropological perspective. Each case study provides the social, cultural, historical and ecological context of the disaster and then analyzes evidence of human and related remains in order to better understand the identities of victims, the means, processes, and extent of deaths and injuries. The methods used by specialists to interpret evidence and disagreements among experts are also addressed. It will be helpful in understanding the circumstances of a range of disasters and the multidisciplinary ways in which bioarchaeologists employ empirical methods and analytic frameworks to interpret their impacts and consequences. The book is intended for those in the social and biological sciences, particularly archaeology, forensics, history and ethnography. It will also be of interest to those in medical history and epidemiology, ecological studies, and those involved in disaster response, law enforcement and human rights work.

The Bioarchaeology of Societal Collapse and Regeneration in Ancient Peru

The Bioarchaeology of Societal Collapse and Regeneration in Ancient Peru PDF Author: Danielle Shawn Kurin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319284045
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
This book explores how individuals, social groups, and entire populations are impacted by the tumultuous collapse of ancient states and empires. Through meticulous study of the bones of the dead and the molecules embedded therein, bioarchaeologists can reconstruct how the reverberations of traumatic social disasters permanently impact human bodies over the course of generations. In this case, we focus on the enigmatic civilizations of ancient Peru. Around 1000 years ago, the Wari Empire, the first expansive, imperial state in the highland Andes, abruptly collapsed after four centures of domination. Several hundred years later, the Inca rose to power, creating a new highland empire running along the spine of South America. But what happened in between? According to Andean folklore, two important societies, known today as the Chanka and the Quichua, emerged from the ashes of the ruined Wari state, and coalesced as formidable polities despite the social, political, and economic chaos that characterized the end of imperial control. The period of the Chanka and the Quichua, however, produced no known grand capital, no large, elaborate cities, no written or commercial records, and left relatively little by way of tools, goods, and artwork. Knowledge of the Chanka and Quichua who thrived in the Andahuaylas region of south-central Peru, ca. 1000 – 1400 A.D., is mainly written in bone—found largely in the human remains and associated funerary objects of its population. This book presents novel insights as to the nature of society during this important interstitial era between empires—what specialists call the “Late Intermediate Period” in Andean pre-history. Additionally, it provides a detailed study of Wari state collapse, explores how imperial fragmentation impacted local people in Andahuaylas, and addresses how those people reorganized their society after this traumatic disruption. Particular attention is given to describing how Wari collapse impacted rates and types of violence, altered population demographic profiles, changed dietary habits, prompted new patterns of migration, generated novel ethnic identities, prompted innovative technological advances, and transformed beliefs and practices concerning the dead.

Forensic Approaches to Death, Disaster and Abuse

Forensic Approaches to Death, Disaster and Abuse PDF Author: Marc Oxenham
Publisher: Australian Academic Press
ISBN: 1875378901
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
During the last 100 years infant mortality rates have improved dramatically, yet even in a developed country such as Australia the physical health of infants varies greatly, despite advances in science and technology. It has now become clear that emotional and physical development is affected by many different variables. Not only must physical development and health support be adequate, but the presence of factors such as good-enough parenting, and the absence of others such as substance abuse and domestic violence, are now becoming better understood. So how best to work with families where infants are at risk? This is the substance of this book: to understand how to achieve improved outcomes for infants growing up in situations of risk, mainly in the area of the parents' mental health, but also in other related psychosocial circumstances that may impair parental functioning. These include migration, substance abuse, and infant hospitalisation. Throughout this book, the authors examine the effects of adverse life circumstances on infant and family and, in most cases, also describe assessments and interventions. Several chapters have been written by people personally affected by mental illness, or mental illness of a family member. This provides in-depth and often poignant understanding of the perspective of those living with the effects of such illnesses, and helps to expand our knowledge and skills to work with at-risk families.

Still Life with Bones

Still Life with Bones PDF Author: Alexa Hagerty
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0593443144
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • An anthropologist working with forensic teams and victims’ families to investigate crimes against humanity in Latin America explores what science can tell us about the lives of the dead in this haunting account of grief, the power of ritual, and a quest for justice. “Absorbing . . . multifaceted and elegiac . . . Still Life with Bones captures the ethos that drives the search—often tireless and against the odds—for truth.”—The New York Times “Exhumation can divide brothers and restore fathers, open old wounds and open the possibility of regeneration—of building something new with the ‘pile of broken mirrors’ that is memory, loss, and mourning.” Throughout Guatemala’s thirty-six-year armed conflict, state forces killed more than two hundred thousand people. Argentina’s military dictatorship disappeared up to thirty thousand people. In the wake of genocidal violence, families of the missing searched for the truth. Young scientists joined their fight against impunity. Gathering evidence in the face of intimidation and death threats, they pioneered the field of forensic exhumation for human rights. In Still Life with Bones, anthropologist Alexa Hagerty learns to see the dead body with a forensic eye. She examines bones for marks of torture and fatal wounds—hands bound by rope, machete cuts—and also for signs of identity: how life shapes us down to the bone. A weaver is recognized from the tiny bones of the toes, molded by kneeling before a loom; a girl is identified alongside her pet dog. In the tenderness of understanding these bones, forensics not only offers proof of mass atrocity but also tells the story of each life lost. Working with forensic teams at mass grave sites and in labs, Hagerty discovers how bones bear witness to crimes against humanity and how exhumation can bring families meaning after unimaginable loss. She also comes to see how cutting-edge science can act as ritual—a way of caring for the dead with symbolic force that can repair societies torn apart by violence. Weaving together powerful stories about investigative breakthroughs, histories of violence and resistance, and her own forensic coming-of-age, Hagerty crafts a moving portrait of the living and the dead.

Recovery, Analysis, and Identification of Commingled Human Remains

Recovery, Analysis, and Identification of Commingled Human Remains PDF Author: Bradley J. Adams
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1597453161
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
Commingling of human remains presents an added challenge to all phases of the forensic process. This book brings together tools from diverse sources within forensic science to offer a set of comprehensive approaches to handling commingled remains. It details the recovery of commingled remains in the field, the use of triage in the assessment of commingling, various analytical techniques for sorting and determining the number of individuals, the role of DNA in the overall process, ethical considerations, and data management. In addition, the book includes case examples that illustrate techniques found to be successful and those that proved problematic.

Forensic Science and Humanitarian Action

Forensic Science and Humanitarian Action PDF Author: Roberto C. Parra
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 111948202X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 1538

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Book Description
Widens traditional concepts of forensic science to include humanitarian, social, and cultural aspects Using the preservation of the dignity of the deceased as its foundation, Forensic Science and Humanitarian Action: Interacting with the Dead and the Living is a unique examination of the applications of humanitarian forensic science. Spanning two comprehensive volumes, the text is sufficiently detailed for forensic practitioners, yet accessible enough for non-specialists, and discusses both the latest technologies and real-world interactions. Arranged into five sections, this book addresses the ‘management of the dead’ across five major areas in humanitarian forensic science. Volume One presents the first three of these areas: History, Theory, Practice, and Legal Foundation; Basic Forensic Information to Trace Missing Persons; and Stable Isotopes Forensics. Topics covered include: Protection of The Missing and the Dead Under International Law Social, Cultural and Religious Factors in Humanitarian Forensic Science Posthumous Dignity and the Importance in Returning Remains of the Deceased The New Disappeared – Migration and Forensic Science Stable Isotope Analysis in Forensic Anthropology Volume Two covers two further areas of interest: DNA Analysis and the Forensic Identification Process. It concludes with a comprehensive set of case studies focused on identifying the deceased, and finding missing persons from around the globe, including: Forensic Human Identification from an Australian Perspective Skeletal Remains and Identification Processing at the FBI Migrant Deaths along the Texas/Mexico Border Humanitarian Work in Cyprus by The Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) Volcán De Fuego Eruption – Natural Disaster Response from Guatemala Drawing upon a wide range of contributions from respected academics working in the field, Forensic Science and Humanitarian Action is a unique reference for forensic practitioners, communities of humanitarian workers, human rights defenders, and government and non-governmental officials.

Bioarchaeology of East Asia

Bioarchaeology of East Asia PDF Author: Ekaterina Alexandrovna Pechenkina
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813044279
Category : East Asia
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Examines current understandings of human population histories, adaptations, dietary changes, and health variations within the geographical context of ancient east Asia.

The Routledge Handbook of the Bioarchaeology of Climate and Environmental Change

The Routledge Handbook of the Bioarchaeology of Climate and Environmental Change PDF Author: Gwen Robbins Schug
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351030450
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 553

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Book Description
This handbook examines human responses to climatic and environmental changes in the past,and their impacts on disease patterns, nutritional status, migration, and interpersonal violence. Bioarchaeology—the study of archaeological human skeletons—provides direct evidence of the human experience of past climate and environmental changes and serves as an important complement to paleoclimate, historical, and archaeological approaches to changes we may expect with global warming. Comprising 27 chapters from experts across a broad range of time periods and geographical regions, this book addresses hypotheses about how climate and environmental changes impact human health and well-being, factors that promote resilience, and circumstances that make migration or interpersonal violence a more likely outcome. The volume highlights the potential relevance of bioarchaeological analysis to contemporary challenges by organizing the chapters into a framework outlined by the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. Planning for a warmer world requires knowledge about humans as biological organisms with a deep connection to Earth's ecosystems balanced by an appreciation of how historical and socio-cultural circumstances, socioeconomic inequality, degrees of urbanization, community mobility, and social institutions play a role in shaping long-term outcomes for human communities. Containing a wealth of nuanced perspectives about human-environmental relations, book is key reading for students of environmental archaeology, bioarchaeology, and the history of disease. By providing a longer view of contemporary challenges, it may also interest readers in public health, public policy, and planning.

Surviving Sudden Environmental Change

Surviving Sudden Environmental Change PDF Author: Jago Cooper
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1457117266
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
Archaeologists have long encountered evidence of natural disasters through excavation and stratigraphy. In Surviving Sudden Environmental Change, case studies examine how eight different past human communities—ranging from Arctic to equatorial regions, from tropical rainforests to desert interiors, and from deep prehistory to living memory—faced, and coped with, such dangers. Many disasters originate from a force of nature, such as an earthquake, cyclone, tsunami, volcanic eruption, drought, or flood. But that is only half of the story; decisions of people and their particular cultural lifeways are the rest. Sociocultural factors are essential in understanding risk, impact, resilience, reactions, and recoveries from massive sudden environmental changes. By using deep-time perspectives provided by interdisciplinary approaches, this book provides a rich temporal background to the human experience of environmental hazards and disasters. In addition, each chapter is followed by an abstract summarizing the important implications for today’s management practices and providing recommendations for policy makers. Publication supported in part by the National Science Foundation.

Forensic Anthropology

Forensic Anthropology PDF Author: Angi M. Christensen
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0124172903
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
Forensic Anthropology: Current Methods and Practice—winner of a 2015 Textbook Excellence Award (Texty) from The Text and Academic Authors Association—approaches forensic anthropology through an innovative style using current practices and real case studies drawn from the varied experiences, backgrounds, and practices of working forensic anthropologists. This text guides the reader through all aspects of human remains recovery and forensic anthropological analysis, presenting principles at a level that is appropriate for those new to the field, while at the same time incorporating evolutionary, biomechanical, and other theoretical foundations for the features and phenomena encountered in forensic anthropological casework. Attention is focused primarily on the most recent and scientifically valid applications commonly employed by working forensic anthropologists. Readers will therefore learn about innovative techniques in the discipline, and aspiring practitioners will be prepared by understanding the necessary background needed to work in the field today. Instructors and students will find Forensic Anthropology: Current Methods and Practice comprehensive, practical, and relevant to the modern discipline of forensic anthropology. - Winner of a 2015 Most Promising New Textbook Award from the Text and Academic Authors Association - Focuses on modern methods, recent advances in research and technology, and current challenges in the science of forensic anthropology - Addresses issues of international relevance such as the role of forensic anthropology in mass disaster response and human rights investigations - Includes chapter summaries, topicoriented case studies, keywords, and reflective questions to increase active student learning