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.
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.
One of the most fundamental developments in the history of our species—and one having among the most profound impacts on landscapes and the people occupying them—was the domestication of plants and ...animals. In addition to altering landscapes around the globe from the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene, the shift from foraging to farming resulted in negative and multiple consequences for human health. Study of human skeletal remains from archaeological contexts shows that the introduction of grains and other cultigens and the increase in their dietary focus resulted in a decline in health and alterations in activity and lifestyle. Although agriculture provided the economic basis for the rise of states and development of civilizations, the change in diet and acquisition of food resulted in a decline in quality of life for most human populations in the last 10,000 years.
Hydrazone and oxime bond formation between α-nucleophiles (
hydrazines, alkoxy-amines) and carbonyl compounds (aldehydes and ketones) is convenient and is widely applied in multiple fields of ...research. While the reactants are simple, a substantial drawback is the relatively slow reaction at neutral pH. Here we describe a novel molecular strategy for accelerating these reactions, using bifunctional buffer compounds that not only control pH but also catalyze the reaction. The buffers can be employed at pH 5-9 (5-50 mM) and accelerate reactions by several orders of magnitude, yielding second-order rate constants of >10 M
s
. Effective bifunctional amines include 2-(aminomethyl)imidazoles and
,
-dimethylethylenediamine. Unlike previous diaminobenzene catalysts, the new buffer amines are found to have low toxicity to human cells, and can be used to promote reactions in cellular applications.
The transition from a human diet based exclusively on wild plants and animals to one involving dependence on domesticated plants and animals beginning 10,000 to 11,000 y ago in Southwest Asia set ...into motion a series of profound health, lifestyle, social, and economic changes affecting human populations throughout most of the world. However, the social, cultural, behavioral, and other factors surrounding health and lifestyle associated with the foraging-to-farming transition are vague, owing to an incomplete or poorly understood contextual archaeological record of living conditions. Bioarchaeological investigation of the extraordinary record of human remains and their context from Neolithic Çatalhöyük (7100–5950 cal BCE), a massive archaeological site in south-central Anatolia (Turkey), provides important perspectives on population dynamics, health outcomes, behavioral adaptations, interpersonal conflict, and a record of community resilience over the life of this single early farming settlement having the attributes of a protocity. Study of Çatalhöyük human biology reveals increasing costs to members of the settlement, including elevated exposure to disease and labor demands in response to community dependence on and production of domesticated plant carbohydrates, growing population size and density fueled by elevated fertility, and increasing stresses due to heightened workload and greater mobility required for caprine herding and other resource acquisition activities over the nearly 12 centuries of settlement occupation. These changes in life conditions foreshadow developments that would take place worldwide over the millennia following the abandonment of Neolithic Çatalhöyük, including health challenges, adaptive patterns, physical activity, and emerging social behaviors involving interpersonal violence.
"Breaks new ground regarding how to think about colonial encounters in innovative ways that pay attention to a wide range of issues from health and demography to identity formations and ...adaptation."--Debra L. Martin, coeditor ofThe Bioarchaeology of Violence "Amply demonstrates the breadth and variability of the impact of colonialism."--Ken Nystrom, State University of New York at New Paltz
European expansion into the New World fundamentally altered indigenous populations. The collision between East and West led to the most recent human adaptive transition that spread around the world. Paradoxically, these are some of the least scientifically understood processes of the human past. Representing a new generation of contact and colonialism studies, this volume expands on the traditional focus on the health of conquered peoples by considering how extraordinary biological and cultural transformations were incorporated into the human body and reflected in behavior, identity, and adaptation.
By examining changes in diet, mortuary practices, and diseases, these globally diverse case studies demonstrate that the effects of conquest reach further than was ever thought before-to both the colonized and the colonizers. People on all sides of colonial contact became entangled in cultural and biological transformations of social identities, foodways, social structures, and gene pools at points of contact and beyond. Contributors to this volume illustrate previously unknown and variable effects of colonialism by analyzing skeletal remains and burial patterns from never-before-studied regions in the Americas to the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. The result is the first step toward a new synthesis of archaeology and bioarchaeology. Melissa S. Murphy, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Wyoming, is coeditor ofEnduring Conquests: Rethinking the Archaeology of Resistance to Spanish Colonialism in the Americas. Haagen D. Klaus, associate professor of anthropology at George Mason University, is coeditor ofRitual Violence in the Ancient Andes: Reconstructing Sacrifice on the North Coast of Peru.
Contributors: Rosabella Alvarez-Calderón | Elliot H. Blair | Maria Fernanda Boza | Michele R. Buzon | Romina Casali | Mark N. Cohen | Danielle N. Cook | Marie Elaine Danforth | J. Lynn Funkhouser | Catherine Gaither | Pamela García Laborde| Ricardo A. Guichón | Rocio Guichón Fernández | Heather Guzik | Amanda R. Harvey | Barbara T. Hester | Dale L. Hutchinson | Kristina Killgrove | Haagen D. Klaus | Clark Spencer Larsen | Alan G. Morris | Melissa S. Murphy | Alejandra Ortiz | Megan A. Perry | Emily S. Renschler | Isabelle Ribot | Melisa A. Salerno | Matthew C. Sanger | Paul W. Sciulli | Stuart Tyson Smith | Christopher M. Stojanowski | David Hurst Thomas | Victor D. Thompson | Vera Tiesler | Jason Toohey | Lauren A. Winkler | Pilar Zabala A volume in the series Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives, edited by Clark Spencer Larsen
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