Bioarchaeology Of Climate Change And Violence

The goal of this monograph is to emphasize with empirical data the complexity of the relationship between climate change and violence. Bioarchaeology is the integration of human skeletal remains from ancient societies with the cultural and environmental context. Information on mortality, disease, diet and other factors provide important data to examine long chronologies of human existence, particularly during periods of droughts and life-threatening climate changes. Case studies are used to reconstruct the responses and short and long-term adaptations made by groups before, during and after dramatic changes in weather and climate. Interpersonal and group violence is also analyzed. The authors find that while in some cases there is an increase in trauma and violence, in other cases there is not. Human groups are capable of avoiding violent altercations and increasing broad networks of cooperation that help to mitigate the effects of climate change. A case study from the U.S. Southwest is provided that shows the variable and surprising ways that ancient farmers in the past dealt with long term droughts.

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.

Bioarchaeologists who study human remains in ancient, historic and contemporary settings are securely anchored within anthropology as anthropologists, yet they have not taken on the pundits the way other subdisciplines within anthropology have. Popular science authors frequently and selectively use bioarchaeological data on demography, disease, violence, migration and diet to buttress their poorly formed arguments about general trends in human behavior and health, beginning with our earliest ancestors. While bioarchaeologists are experts on these subjects, bioarchaeology and bioarchaeological approaches have largely remained invisible to the public eye. Current issues such as climate change, droughts, warfare, violence, famine, and the effects of disease are media mainstays and are subjects familiar to bioarchaeologists, many of whom have empirical data and informed viewpoints, both for topical exploration and also for predictions based on human behavior in deep time. The contributions in this volume will explore the how and where the data has been misused, present new ways of using evidence in the service of making new discoveries, and demonstrate ways that our long term interdisciplinarity lends itself to transdisciplinary wisdom. We also consider possible reasons for bioarchaeological invisibility and offer advice concerning the absolute necessity of bioarchaeologists speaking out through social media.

This volume will examine the varied roles that women and children play in period of warfare, which in most cases deviate from their perceived role as noncombatants. Using social theory about the nature of sex, gender and age in thinking about vulnerabilities to different groups during warfare, this collection of studies focuses on the broader impacts of war both during warfare but also long after the conflict is over. The volume will show that during periods of violence and warfare, many suffer beyond those individuals directly involved in battle. From pre-Hispanic Peru to Ming dynasty Mongolia to the Civil War-era United States to the present, warfare has been and is a public health disaster, particularly for women and children. Individuals and populations suffer from displacement, sometimes permanently, due to loss of food and resources and an increased risk of contracting communicable diseases, which results from the poor conditions and tight spaces present in most refugee camps, ancient and modern. Bioarchaeology can provide a more nuanced lens through which to examine the effects of warfare on life, morbidity, and mortality, bringing individuals not traditionally considered by studies of warfare and prolonged violence into focus. Inclusion of these groups in discussions of warfare can increase our understanding of not only the biological but also the social meaning and costs of warfare.

Bioarchaeology covers the history and general theory of the field plus the recovery and laboratory treatment of human remains. Bioarchaeology is the study of human remains in context from an archaeological and anthropological perspective. The book explores, through numerous case studies, how the ways a society deals with their dead can reveal a great deal about that society, including its religious, political, economic, and social organizations. It details recovery methods and how, once recovered, human remains can be analyzed to reveal details about the funerary system of the subject society and inform on a variety of other issues, such as health, demography, disease, workloads, mobility, sex and gender, and migration. Finally, the book highlights how bioarchaeological techniques can be used in contemporary forensic settings and in investigations of genocide and war crimes. In Bioarchaeology, theories, principles, and scientific techniques are laid out in a clear, understandable way, and students of archaeology at undergraduate and graduate levels will find this an excellent guide to the field.

The remains of past people are a testament to their lived experiences and of the environment in which they lived. Synthesising the latest research, this book critically examines the sources of evidence used to understand and interpret violence in bioarchaeology, exploring the significant light such evidence can shed on past hierarchies, gender roles and life courses. The text draws on a diverse range of social and clinical science research to investigate violence and trauma in the archaeological record, focussing on human remains. It examines injury patterns in different groups as well as the biological, psychological and cultural factors that make us behave violently, how our living environment influences injury and violence, the models used to identify and interpret violence in the past, and how violence is used as a social tool. Drawing on a range of case studies, Redfern explores new research directions that will contribute to nuanced interpretations of past lives.

Theoretical Approaches in Bioarchaeology emphasizes how several different theoretical perspectives can be used to reconstruct the biocultural experiences of humans in the past. Over the past few decades, bioarchaeology has been transformed through methodological revisions, technological advances, and the inclusion of external theoretical frameworks from the social and natural sciences. These interdisciplinary perspectives became the backbone of bioarchaeology and strengthened the discipline’s ability to address questions about past biological and social dynamics. Consequently, how, why, and when to apply external theory to studies of past populations are central and timely questions tied to future developments of the discipline. This book facilitates ongoing dialogues about theoretical applications within the field and interdisciplinary connections between bioarchaeology, biological anthropology, and other disciplines. Each chapter highlights how a theoretical framework originating from a social or natural science connects to past and future bioarchaeological research. For scholars and archaeologists interested in the theoretical applications of bioarchaeology, this book will be an excellent resource.

Biocultural or biosocial anthropology is a research approach that views biology and culture as dialectically and inextricably intertwined, explicitly emphasizing the dynamic interaction between humans and their larger social, cultural, and physical environments. The biocultural approach emerged in anthropology in the 1960s, matured in the 1980s, and is now one of the dominant paradigms in anthropology, particularly within biological anthropology. This volume gathers contributions from the top scholars in biocultural anthropology focusing on six of the most influential, productive, and important areas of research within biocultural anthropology. These are: critical and synthetic approaches within biocultural anthropology; biocultural approaches to identity, including race and racism; health, diet, and nutrition; infectious disease from antiquity to the modern era; epidemiologic transitions and population dynamics; and inequality and violence studies. Focusing on these six major areas of burgeoning research within biocultural anthropology makes the proposed volume timely, widely applicable and useful to scholars engaging in biocultural research and students interested in the biocultural approach, and synthetic in its coverage of contemporary scholarship in biocultural anthropology. Students will be able to grasp the history of the biocultural approach, and how that history continues to impact scholarship, as well as the scope of current research within the approach, and the foci of biocultural research into the future. Importantly, contributions in the text follow a consistent format of a discussion of method and theory relative to a particular aspect of the above six topics, followed by a case study applying the surveyed method and theory. This structure will engage students by providing real world examples of anthropological issues, and demonstrating how biocultural method and theory can be used to elucidate and resolve them. Key features include: Contributions which span the breadth of approaches and topics within biological anthropology from the insights granted through work with ancient human remains to those granted through collaborative research with contemporary peoples. Comprehensive treatment of diverse topics within biocultural anthropology, from human variation and adaptability to recent disease pandemics, the embodied effects of race and racism, industrialization and the rise of allergy and autoimmune diseases, and the sociopolitics of slavery and torture. Contributions and sections united by thematically cohesive threads. Clear, jargon-free language in a text that is designed to be pedagogically flexible: contributions are written to be both understandable and engaging to both undergraduate and graduate students. Provision of synthetic theory, method and data in each contribution. The use of richly contextualized case studies driven by empirical data. Through case-study driven contributions, each chapter demonstrates how biocultural approaches can be used to better understand and resolve real-world problems and anthropological issues.