New Directions in Biocultural Anthropology E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1060

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

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.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contributors

Acknowledgments

A biocultural tribute to a biocultural scholar: Professor George J. Armelagos, May 22, 1936–May 15, 2014

References

Chapter 1: Introduction: the development of biocultural perspectives in anthropology

Introduction

The origins and development of the biocultural approach

Using a biocultural model

Difficulties in using the biocultural approach

The case studies in this volume

Conclusion

References

Notes

Part I: Critical and synthetic approaches to biocultural anthropology

Chapter 2: Exploring biocultural concepts: anthropology for the next generation

Introduction

Background

Case study: the Quechua of southern Peru, 1964 to the present

Discussion

Conclusion

References

Notes

Endnotes

Chapter 3: Local nutrition in global contexts: critical biocultural perspectives on the nutrition transition in Mexico

Introduction

Background

Case study: the “coca-colonization” of diet in the Yucatán

Conclusion

References

Notes

Part II: Biocultural approaches to identity

Chapter 4: Disease and dying while black: how racism, not race, gets under the skin

Introduction

Background

Case study: race versus racism

Discussion and conclusion

References

Chapter 5: Beyond genetic race: biocultural insights into the causes of racial health disparities

Introduction

Background

Case study #1: hypertension in the African Diaspora

Case study #2: does the experience of racial discrimination in the United States have intergenerational health consequences?

Discussion and conclusion

References

Chapter 6: Political economy of African forced migration and enslavement in colonial New York: an historical biology perspective

Introduction

Background

Case study

Discussion

Conclusion

References

Notes

Chapter 7: Identifying the First African Baptist Church: searching for historically invisible people

Introduction

Case study: Afro-American biohistory

Conclusion

References

Notes

Part III: Biocultural approaches to health and diet

Chapter 8: “Canaries in the mineshaft”: the children of Kulubnarti

Introduction

Case study: Nubia and Kulubnarti

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

Chapter 9: Biocultural investigations of ancient Nubia

Introduction

Background

Case study: operationalizing a biocultural investigation: the Bioarchaeology of Nubia Expedition

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

Chapter 10: Life and death in nineteenth-century Peoria, Illinois: taking a biocultural approach towards understanding the past

Introduction

Case study: life and death in nineteenth-century Peoria

Discussion

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

Chapter 11: Does industrialization always result in reduced skeletal robusticity?

Introduction

Background

Case study: testing ideas about robusticity and industrialization

Discussion

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

Chapter 12: Stable isotopes and selective forces: examples in biocultural and environmental anthropology

Introduction

Background

Case study: isotopes and epidemiological risk factors/synergies at Wadi Halfa and surrounding regions

Discussion and conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

Chapter 13: The cuisine of prehispanic Central Mexico reconsidered: the “omnivore's dilemma” revisited

Introduction

Case study: prehispanic cuisine of Central Mexico

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

Part IV: Biocultural approaches to infectious disease

Chapter 14: The specter of Ebola: epidemiologic transitions versus the zombie apocalypse

Introduction

Case study: Ebola and the epidemiologic transitions

Discussion and conclusion

References

Notes

Chapter 15: Beyond the differential diagnosis: new approaches to the bioarchaeology of the Hittite plague

Introduction

Case study: investigating the cause of the Hittite plague

Discussion and conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

Chapter 16: Paleoepidemiological and biocultural approaches to ancient disease: the origin and antiquity of syphilis

Introduction

Background

Case study: biocultural and paleoepidemiological approaches to the origin and antiquity of syphilis

Discussion

Conclusion

References

Part V: Biocultural approaches to understanding population dynamics

Chapter 17: Population and disease transitions in the Åland Islands, Finland

Introduction

Background

Case study: Åland archipelago

Discussion

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

Chapter 18: The hygiene hypothesis and the second epidemiologic transition: using biocultural, epidemiological, and evolutionary theory to inform practice in clinical medicine and public health

Introduction

Background

Case study: applying the hygiene hypothesis to practice in public health and clinical medicine

Discussion and conclusion

References

Chapter 19: An emerging history of indigenous Caribbean and circum-Caribbean populations: insights from archaeological, ethnographic, genetic, and historical studies

Introduction

Case study: exploring Caribbean genetic history

Discussion

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

Notes

Chapter 20: Explorations in paleodemography: an overview of the Artificial Long House Valley agent-based modeling project

Introduction

Background

Case study: the Artificial Long House Valley (ALHV) Project models

Discussion

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

Part VI: Biocultural approaches to inequality and violence

Chapter 21: Biocultural perspectives in bioarchaeology

Introduction

Background

Case study: understanding European contact in the Americas

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

Notes

Chapter 22: The poetics of violence in bioarchaeology: Integrating social theory with trauma analysis

Introduction

Background

Case study: the Sierra de Mazatán massacre

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

Chapter 23: Broken bodies and broken bones: Biocultural approaches to ancient slavery and torture

Introduction

Background

Case study: slavery and torture in the prehispanic Southwest

Discussion

Conclusion

References

Notes

Part VII: The next generation

Chapter 24: Concluding thoughts: a bright future for students trained in using a biocultural perspective

Introduction

Teaching, pedagogy, and ethics

The past as a guide

A bright future for biocultural scholarship

References

Notes

Index

End User License Agreement

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Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Part I: Critical and synthetic approaches to biocultural anthropology

Begin Reading

List of Illustrations

Chapter 1: Introduction: the development of biocultural perspectives in anthropology

Figure 1.1 Biocultural model highlighting the common and important aspects of integration across domains.

Chapter 3: Local nutrition in global contexts: critical biocultural perspectives on the nutrition transition in Mexico

Figure 3.1 Map of Mexico showing the Yucatán Peninsula in gray. Source: Pi-Sunyer and Thomas (1997). Reproduced with permission of Sage Publications.

Chapter 4: Disease and dying while black: how racism, not race, gets under the skin

Figure 4.1 Relationship between geographic and genetic distance. Note the very strong relationship between geographic and genetic distance. In almost every case, geographic distance is highly correlated with genetic difference. Source: redrawn from Templeton (1998).

Figure 4.2 Mean differences in SNPs. Note that the average difference between two Africans is greater than the average difference between two Europeans or two Asians and also greater than the average difference between a Eurasian and an African. Data from Yu et al. (2002).

Figure 4.3 Percentage correct classification of Native American crania to race. Original test and original retest of the data from Giles and Elliot (1962) and four retests by other authors. Note the sharp decrease in percentage correct on the retested samples.

Figure 4.4 Distribution of birth weights among infants of US-born white and black women and African-born black women in Illinois, 1980–1995. The calculation of frequencies was based on all singleton births in Illinois. The study population included the infants of 3135 black women born in sub-Saharan Africa, 43 322 black women born in the United States (a sample that included 7.5% of the total number of black women giving birth in Illinois), and 44 046 US-born white women (2.5% of the total number of white women giving birth in Illinois). Source: David and Collins 1997.

Chapter 6: Political economy of African forced migration and enslavement in colonial New York: an historical biology perspective

Figure 6.1 African adult sex ratio for eighteenth-century New York City.

Figure 6.2 New York African Burial Ground mortality.

Figure 6.3 New York African Burial Ground mortality by sex and age.

Figure 6.4 African child-to-woman ratio New York City.

Figure 6.5 Summary of relevant political economic factors.

Chapter 7: Identifying the First African Baptist Church: searching for historically invisible people

Figure 7.1 Generalized model for the biocultural analysis of skeletal remains. Source: Goodman

et al

. (1984).

Figure 7.2 First African Baptist Church location and African-American households residential segregation patterns (line density represents population density).

Figure 7.3 First African Baptist Church cemetery excavation plan.

Figure 7.4 First African Baptist Church mortality.

Figure 7.5 Synthesized FABC biocultural model.

Figure 7.6 Philadelphia free African American population 1830–1840.

Chapter 8: “Canaries in the mineshaft”: the children of Kulubnarti

Figure 8.1 Map of Nubia with cataracts labeled first through fifth.

Figure 8.2 (a) Cribra orbitalia. (b) Enamel hypoplasia. (c) Cross-sectional view of a tooth showing Wilson's bands.

Figure 8.3 Average life expectancy by age at death category for the island and mainland cemeteries. Data from Van Gerven

et al

. (1981).

Figure 8.4 (a) Percentage frequency of cribra orbitalia by age at death category for the island and mainland cemeteries. (b) Percentage frequency of active cribra orbitalia by age at death category for the island and mainland cemeteries. (c) Average life expectancy by age at death category for individuals with and without the cribra orbitalia lesion. (d) Percentage frequency of enamel hypoplasia by age at death for the island and mainland cemeteries. (e) Intervals between hypoplasias in years. When multiple hypoplasias are present on single teeth, 80% of them occur within six-month intervals in the island cemetery. Most hypoplasia events in the mainland cemetery are separated by a year of recovery. (f) Correlation between percent frequency of hypoplasia and cribra orbitalia for the cemeteries combined. Each data point is a whole-year age at death category (1–5yrs). Data for (a)–(c) from Mittler and Van Gerven (1994), (d,e) from Van Gerven

et al

. (1990) and (f) from Van Gerven

et al

. (1995).

Figure 8.5 Percentage frequency of cribra orbitalia, hypoplasia, and probability of dying by age at death. Data from Van Gerven

et al

. (1995).

Figure 8.6 Number of Wilson's bands and percentage of enamel affected by cemetery. Data from Karhu (1991).

Figure 8.7 Nitrogen isotope values of rib collagen by age at death. Each data point is the mean of a category. There is considerable variability at each age, but the mean line is a reasonable representation of the trend in the data. The declining values represent the weaning process. Here, the average three year old was not completely weaned, but weaning was complete for most five year olds. Data from Turner

et al

. (2007) and Sandberg

et al

. (2014).

Figure 8.8 (a) High-resolution nitrogen isotope profile from the permanent first molar of individual “R26” overlaid on the mean line from the rib collagen data. The individual appears to have been weaned earlier than the average non-survivor. (b) A high-resolution nitrogen isotope profile from the permanent first molar of individual “R26.” The vertical bars represent the timing of enamel hypoplasias on this individual's permanent first molar or permanent canine. The hypoplasias occurred during the weaning process, rather than after weaning was complete. Data from Sandberg

et al

. (2014).

Chapter 9: Biocultural investigations of ancient Nubia

Figure 9.1 Map showing the locations of major sites and landmarks in Nubia. The star marks the Bioarchaeology of Nubia Expedition project area.

Figure 9.2 George J. Armelagos preparing bone samples from the 1963–1964 field season for shipment to the United States in the University of Colorado field lab near Wadi Halfa. Photo provided by George Armelagos.

Chapter 10: Life and death in nineteenth-century Peoria, Illinois: taking a biocultural approach towards understanding the past

Figure 10.1 Map of the Peoria Public Library excavation showing the existing library, the location of detected grave shafts, the original proposed footprint of the new building (the outermost line within which all grave shafts appear), and the final reduced footprint of the proposed building (the square within which a more limited number of grave shafts were recorded). The original plat of the cemetery has been overlaid, appearing as numbered squares and rectangles of varying size. Source: Bird and Grauer (2012).

Figure 10.2 Mortality profiles derived from skeletal analyses and mortality schedules.

Figure 10.3 Common causes of death recorded in the mortality schedules.

Figure 10.4 Most common causes of death of children two years old and younger (1850 = 79 children, 1860 = 193).

Chapter 13: The cuisine of prehispanic Central Mexico reconsidered: the “omnivore's dilemma” revisited

Figure 13.1 Map of the Prehispanic Basin of Mexico with Both Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan and the Lakes. Adapted from Basin of Mexico-en.svg, Creative Commons International 4.0.].

Figure 13.2 The axolotl, the distinctive salamander eaten by prehispanics in the Basin of Mexico. Photo by R. Widmer.

Chapter 15: Beyond the differential diagnosis: new approaches to the bioarchaeology of the Hittite plague

Figure 15.1 Comparison of skeletal lesions in Ugandans who died of anemia and those who died of other causes.

Figure 15.2 Amarna age-at-death frequencies by group.

Figure 15.3 Sex frequencies at Amarna's South Tombs Cemetery.

Figure 15.4 Frequencies of multiple burials by section of the South Tombs Cemetery at Amarna.

Figure 15.5 Female stature differences at Amarna by site.

Figure 15.6 Childhood age at death at Amarna.

Chapter 16: Paleoepidemiological and biocultural approaches to ancient disease: the origin and antiquity of syphilis

Figure 16.1 (a) Caries sicca lesions on the cranial vault. (b) Bony expansions and nodes with superficial cavitation on the long bones.

Figure 16.2 Typical chancre of primary stage syphilis.

Figure 16.3 Maps depicting (a) all reported cases of pre-Columbian treponemal disease in the Old World, (c) those cases with a certain diagnosis (score ≥4), and (c) those cases with both a certain diagnosis (score ≥4) and a radiocarbon date with a 95% CI interval that ends before 1493, after adjusting for the marine signature (dating score ≥4). Modified from Harper

et al

. (2011). Reroduced with permission of

American Journal of Physical Anthropology

.

Chapter 17: Population and disease transitions in the Åland Islands, Finland

Figure 17.1 The components, stages, and characteristics of demographic and epidemiologic transitions.

Figure 17.2 Map showing location and parish subdivisions for the Åland Island archipelago.

Figure 17.3 Crude birth rates, crude death rates, and population growth in Åland from 1750 to 1950.

Figure 17.4 Observed and predicted changes in crude death and crude birth rates along with slope changes.

Figure 17.5 Observed and predicted changes in infectious disease deaths along with a slope change.

Figure 17.6 Observed and predicted changes in deaths of children less than 10 years of age along with slope changes.

Figure 17.7 Observed and predicted changes in deaths of children 10 years and older along with the changes in slopes.

Chapter 18: The hygiene hypothesis and the second epidemiologic transition: using biocultural, epidemiological, and evolutionary theory to inform practice in clinical medicine and public health

Figure 18.1 The model of demographic and epidemiologic transitions, as conceptualized by Omran (1971) and Thompson (1929).

Figure 18.2 Asthma prevalence among children 0 to 17 years of age in the United States, in 1980–2007, based on data from the National Health Interview Survey. Figure shows an increase from 3.6% in 1980 to a peak of 7.5% in 1995. Asthma attack is defined as those experiencing >/−1 asthma attack in the previous year.

Figure 18.3 Helminths that have been used in trials to treat IBD. (a)

Trichuris suis

, the pig whipworm. (b)

Necator americanus

, the human hookworm.

Chapter 19: An emerging history of indigenous Caribbean and circum-Caribbean populations: insights from archaeological, ethnographic, genetic, and historical studies

Figure 19.1 A map of the Caribbean region showing the locations of the islands on which the indigenous populations participating in our genetics studies reside.

Chapter 20: Explorations in paleodemography: an overview of the Artificial Long House Valley agent-based modeling project

Figure 20.1 The Four Corners region showing the location of other major Ancestral Puebloan areas; top map provides detail on the study area itself.

Figure 20.2 Population growth rates in the Long House Valley, AD 800–1350. The archaeological data are based on archaeological estimates over the entire period. The curves in gray fit an exponential growth model to the three time periods corresponding to growing populations in the region. The early and late periods are characterized by similar growth rates (r = 0.006 versus r = 0.005), while the middle period indicates a time of accelerated growth (r = 0.012).

Figure 20.3 General structure of the original AA model. The model space is 80 × 120 cells with each cell representing a 100 m × 100 m space. Farms can be placed on any productive cell, but only one farm is allowed per cell. Households are placed on unfarmed, less productive cells near farms, with multiple households allowed per cell.

Figure 20.4 Output from simulations of the AA model. (a) Map of the simulated Long House Valley near the time of maximum population size. White squares designate household farms, which are densely distributed throughout the prime agricultural land (darkest gray) at this time. (b) Graph of archaeological (

black

) and simulated (

gray

) household counts between AD 800 and AD 1350 exhibiting a “good fit” of the model to data. The model parameters were chosen to maximize the probability that the fit between the model and data is adequate, although specific runs are highly variable and can result in, for example, early extinction, presence of only one peak, overshooting both peaks, etc. Analyses presented in Janssen (2009) indicate that the general pattern is driven by environmental characteristics that influence “harvest parameters” and determine the carrying capacity of the land.

Figure 20.5 Results of simulations using low, moderate, and high values for HARVEST ADJUSTMENT with archaeological population estimates for comparison.

Figure 20.6 An example of simulations where population estimates reach the carrying capacity of the landscape. The tops of the peaks have leveled off because the population cannot grow larger than the carrying capacity.

Figure 20.7 Typical output from simulations of the ALHV model. The vast majority of runs exhibit a pattern of exponential growth (consistent with the assumption of constant age-specific birth and death rates), followed by a steep decline as the region becomes agriculturally unproductive. Patterns of population growth are independent of the environmental characteristics that influence “harvest variables.” Note: the archaeological data curve is identical to that shown in Figure 20.2 and 20.4b, but the vertical scale has changed so that all simulated data can appear on the plot.

Figure 20.8 The packed simulation landscape that results from ALHV runs. Map of the simulated Long House Valley near the time of maximum population size. White squares designate household farms, which are densely distributed throughout almost the entire valley at this time.

Figure 20.9 Premortem maxillary tooth loss for Early and Late Pueblo. Based on data from right side maxillae only. Adapted from Martin

et al

. (1991:206).

Chapter 21: Biocultural perspectives in bioarchaeology

Figure 21.1 Map of the Lambayeque Valley region with locations of Mórrope and Eten.

Figure 21.2 (a) The archaeological site at Mórrope. (b) The archaeological site at Eten.

Figure 21.3 Bone collagen carbon and nitrogen isotope data from Mórrope and Eten.

Figure 21.4 Bone and enamel carbon and oxygen isotope data from Mórrope and Eten (broken down by time period).

Figure 21.5 Wilson's band (WB) in tooth enamel from Eten (individual U4-AE12) along with a well-defined neonatal line and striae of Retzius (SR) at a low magnification. Photo source: Garland (2014).

Chapter 22: The poetics of violence in bioarchaeology: Integrating social theory with trauma analysis

Figure 22.1 Alternative model for a bioarchaeology of violence.

Figure 22.2 Map of relevant locations in north-western Mexico.

Chapter 23: Broken bodies and broken bones: Biocultural approaches to ancient slavery and torture

Figure 23.1 Female, age 25, no skeletal evidence of trauma. Pit structure 1, upper fill. LA 37595, B1.

Figure 23.2 Female, age 33, cranial and postcranial trauma evident on the skeleton highlighted. Pit structure 1, lower fill. LA 65030, B9.

Figure 23.4 Age 10.5, no skeletal evidence of trauma. Pit structure 1, lower fill. LA 65030, B7.

Figure 23.3 Female, age 20, cranial and postcranial trauma evident on the skeleton highlighted. Pit structure 1, lower fill. LA 65030, B8.

Figure 23.5 Drawing of perimortem taphonomic damage to FOO-002, dorsal surface.

Figure 23.6 Drawing of perimortem taphonomic damage to FOO-002, plantar view.

List of Tables

Chapter 6: Political economy of African forced migration and enslavement in colonial New York: an historical biology perspective

Table 6.1 New York African population by age and sex, eighteenth century censuses

Table 6.2 African adult sex ratio New York County 1703–1800

Table 6.3 New York African Burial Ground adult mortality

Table 6.4 New York African Burial Ground subadult mortality

Table 6.5 Population of New York County, 1698–1800

Chapter 7: Identifying the First African Baptist Church: searching for historically invisible people

Table 7.1 FABC adult mortality by age and sex

Table 7.2 FABC subadult mortality by age group

Table 7.3 Denomination of church and color of households

Table 7.4 Afro-American and African Baptist heads of households

Table 7.5 Male heads of household occupations

Table 7.6 Occupation of female heads of household

Table 7.7 Household beneficial society membership

Table 7.8 Afro-American skeletal series (prior to 1996)

Chapter 8: “Canaries in the mineshaft”: the children of Kulubnarti

Table 8.1 Age at death categories and sample sizes for the island and mainland cemeteries

Chapter 10: Life and death in nineteenth-century Peoria, Illinois: taking a biocultural approach towards understanding the past

Table 10.1 Demographic profile of skeletal remains recovered from the Peoria City Cemetery (age at death could not be determined for two individuals)

Table 10.2 Most frequent pathological conditions recorded in the Peoria Cemetery sample

Table 10.3 Juveniles in the Peoria Public Cemetery skeletal sample displaying reactive bone (adapted from Grauer

et al

. 2013 and Drissell

et al

. 2012)

Table 10.4 Comparison of demographic profiles derived from mortality schedules and skeletal analysis

Chapter 11: Does industrialization always result in reduced skeletal robusticity?

Table 11.1 Descriptive statistics for the femur and humerus of the Colorado Insane Asylum sample

Table 11.2 Regression of robusticity indices for nineteenth-century archaeological sites compared to the Colorado Asylum sample

Table 11.3 Difference of means between the nineteenth-century samples and the Industrial samples presented in Wescott (2001, 2006)

Table 11.4 Skeletal robusticity indices from external metric measurements

Chapter 15: Beyond the differential diagnosis: new approaches to the bioarchaeology of the Hittite plague

Table 15.1 Diseases potentially responsible for the Hittite plague

Table 15.2 Comparison chart of malaria species ecology

*

Table 15.3 Frequencies of skeletal anemia at Amarna compared with modern malarial/non-malarial reference samples

Chapter 16: Paleoepidemiological and biocultural approaches to ancient disease: the origin and antiquity of syphilis

Table 16.1 Scoring criteria employed, modified from Harper

et al

. (2011)

Chapter 17: Population and disease transitions in the Åland Islands, Finland

Table 17.1 MARS estimates (parameters) for crude death and crude birth rates in Åland

Chapter 19: An emerging history of indigenous Caribbean and circum-Caribbean populations: insights from archaeological, ethnographic, genetic, and historical studies

Table 19.1 Mitochondrial DNA haplogroup frequencies in indigenous Caribbean communities

Table 19.2 Y-chromosome haplogroup frequencies in indigenous Caribbean communities

Chapter 21: Biocultural perspectives in bioarchaeology

Table 21.1 Commonly studied pathological conditions in human skeletal remains

Table 21.2 Summary pathological condition frequencies and prevalence at Mórrope and Eten (broken down by time period) (adapted from Klaus and Alvarez-Calderón, in press)

Chapter 22: The poetics of violence in bioarchaeology: Integrating social theory with trauma analysis

Table 22.1 Trauma and pathology analysis of crania from the 1902 Sierra de Mazatán massacre. Source: Bauer-Clapp and Pérez (2014:180)

New Directions in Biocultural Anthropology

Edited By

Molly K. Zuckerman

Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures, Mississippi State University, USA

and

Debra L. Martin

Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA

Copyright © 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for:

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Cover images provided by Ann Magennis, Nicole Smith Guzman, Beth Turner, Chris Kuzawa, Tad Schurr, Alan Swedlund, Tom Leatherman, and Kristin Harper.

This volume is dedicated to the memory of George Armelagos, friend, mentor, teacher, scholar, intellectual, and jokester.

Contributors

George J. Armelagos (deceased)

Formerly Department of Anthropology

Emory University

Atlanta

USA

Brenda J. Baker

Center for Bioarchaeological Research

School of Human Evolution and Social Change

Arizona State University

Tempe

USA

Ronald Barrett

Department of Anthropology

Macalester College

Carnegie Hall

St Paul

USA

Jonathan R. Belanich

Department of Anthropology and Middle

Eastern Cultures and

Department of Biological Sciences

Mississippi State University

Mississippi State

USA

Jada Benn Torres

Department of Anthropology

University of Notre Dame

Notre Dame

USA

M. Catherine Bird

Midwest Archaeological Research Services, Inc.

Marengo

USA

Michael L. Blakey

Department of Anthropology

Institute for Historical Biology;

College of William and Mary

Williamsburg

USA

Joshua G.S. Clementz

Department of Anthropology

Colorado State University

Fort Collins

USA

Jill B. Gaieski

Department of Anthropology

University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia

USA

Alan H. Goodman

School of Natural Science

Hampshire College

Amherst

USA

George J. Gumerman III

Santa Fe Institute

Santa Fe

USA

Anne L. Grauer

Department of Anthropology

Loyola University Chicago

Chicago

USA

Clarence C. Gravlee

Department of Anthropology

University of Florida

Gainesville

USA

Kristin N. Harper

Harper Health & Science Communications, LLC

Seattle

USA

Morgan Hoke

Department of Anthropology

Northwestern University

Evanston

USA

Haagen D. Klaus

Department of Sociology and Anthropology

George Mason University

Fairfax

USA

Kathleen Kuckens

Department of Anthropology

University of Arkansas

Fayetteville

USA

Christopher W. Kuzawa

Department of Anthropology

Northwestern University

Evanston

USA

Thomas Leatherman

Department of Anthropology

University of Massachusetts

Amherst

USA

Fred J. Longstaffe

Department of Earth Sciences

University of Western Ontario

London

Canada

Ann L. Magennis

Department of Anthropology

Colorado State University

Fort Collins

USA

Debra L. Martin

Department of Anthropology

University of Nevada

Las Vegas

USA

Richard S. Meindl

Department of Anthropology

Kent State University

Kent

USA

Carlalynne Melendez

Department of Social Science

University of Puerto Rico

Humacao

Puerto Rico

James H. Mielke

Department of Anthropology

University of Kansas

Lawrence

USA

Anna J. Osterholtz

Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures

Mississippi State University

Mississippi State

USA

Ventura R. Pérez

Department of Anthropology

University of Massachusetts

Amherst

USA

Lesley M. Rankin-Hill

Department of Anthropology

University of Oklahoma

Norman

USA

Jerome C. Rose

Department of Anthropology

University of Arkansas

Fayetteville

USA

Paul A. Sandberg

Department of Anthropology

University of Colorado

Boulder

USA

Lisa Sattenspiel

Department of Anthropology

University of Missouri

Columbia

USA

Theodore G. Schurr

Department of Anthropology

University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia

USA

Nicole E. Smith-Guzmán

Center for Tropical Paleoecology and Archeology

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Balboa

Republic of Panamá

Rebecca Storey

Comparative Cultural Studies

University of Houston

Houston

USA

Alan C. Swedlund

Department of Anthropology

University of Massachusetts

Amherst

USA

R. Brooke Thomas

Department of Anthropology

University of Massachusetts

Amherst

USA

Bethany L. Turner

Department of Anthropology

Georgia State University

Atlanta

USA

Dennis P. Van Gerven

Department of Anthropology

University of Colorado

Boulder

USA

Miguel G. Vilar

Department of Anthropology

University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia

USA

Amy Warren

Department of Anthropology

University of Missouri

Columbia

USA

Christine D. White

Department of Anthropology

University of Western Ontario

London

Canada

Randolph J. Widmer

Comparative Cultural Studies

University of Houston

Houston

USA

Laura A. Williams

West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine

River Forest

USA

Molly K. Zuckerman

Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures

Mississippi State University

Mississippi State

USA

Acknowledgments

This book was a labor of love. Each author or set of authors for the chapters were clearly moved to write something that would immortalize some aspect of their history with George Armelagos. For this we are extremely grateful. We would like to express a special note of gratitude to Karen Rosenberg, former President of the American Association of Physical Anthropology, who suggested that we organize a poster session in Knoxville, TN, in 2013. It was her idea that we have the session in a large room with all of the posters surrounded by food with plenty of places to sit and talk with each other and with George. We also want to thank George's former colleagues in the Department of Anthropology at Emory University, especially Peter Brown and Peter Little, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, especially Tom Leatherman, as well as faculty in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and the Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures at Mississippi State University for their gracious support of the event. Our editor, Mindy Okura-Marszycki, and the editorial and productions team at Wiley-Blackwell have been wonderfully helpful and patient with us as this book took shape. Finally, we want to thank those colleagues of George who loved and appreciated having him in their departments at the University of Massachusetts, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Florida at Gainesville, and at Emory University.

A biocultural tribute to a biocultural scholar: Professor George J. Armelagos, May 22, 1936–May 15, 2014

Debra L. Martin1 & Molly K. Zuckerman2

1Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

2Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures, Mississippi State University

The case studies that comprise this volume all share one fundamental theme: the primary authors worked with George Armelagos on a variety of human behaviors and cultural strategies that have resulted in human suffering, in the past and the present. Most of the scholars in this volume obtained their doctoral degrees in anthropology under George, or worked closely and collaboratively with him on research projects, and so the tie that binds these chapters is one man's vision for how to utilize a particular approach to solving the core problems that humans face in their lives. The problems addressed by everyone working with George are fundamental and inclusive in scope. These include topics such as the evolution of diet, human nutrition, and health; the effects of racism on the health and well-being of generations of African Americans; the meaning and causes of violence; how inequality, poverty, and marginalization affect human biology and well-being, especially of women, children, and minorities – the most vulnerable members of a given society; the effects of economic change and development on human health and well-being, from agriculture to industrialization; how infectious diseases and the pathogens that cause them have adapted to and co-evolved with humans over time and across space, and the dialectics of this relationship; and how indigenous people all over the world have fared throughout time under conditions of climate change or cultural disruptions (see Chapters 19 and 20). How could one person oversee the production of so many different dissertation, postdissertation, and collaborative research projects? We provide a little background to the man, the teacher, and the scholar so that his vision for how engaged and important research should be done might be better understood.

George was born in Detroit on May 22, 1936. He died unexpectedly but peacefully at his home in Atlanta on May 15, 2014 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer one week before. At the American Association for Physical Anthropology meetings in Knoxville, TN, a year before (2013), an afternoon-long session honoring his work by his former graduate students and colleagues paid tribute to the many directions in which his mentoring and interests had taken his students and collaborators. Those presentations form the basis of this volume. In turn, each of George's former students and collaborators spoke about the importance of having George as a mentor in graduate school, as a colleague and collaborator in continued projects, and as a fiercely loyal friend for decades after leaving graduate school. Grown men had tears in their eyes as they spoke lovingly of George's generosity and spirit as he guided them in their careers and research.

One constant theme in the presenters' narratives was what a great teacher George was. They talked about how caring he was and how it was his goal to turn every student on to the joys of seeing the world through an anthropological lens. In particular, speakers recalled his use of the biocultural model and detailed the ways in which this approach was useful to them in their research. As is discussed in greater detail throughout the text, the biocultural approach is an analytical perspective in anthropology that explicitly emphasizes the dynamic interaction between humans and their larger social, cultural, and physical environments. That is when we got the idea to honor George by producing a textbook for undergraduates and graduate students taking anthropology classes that highlighted a wide range of case studies on the theory backing the biocultural approach and how the biocultural approach could be applied.

George had a very distinguished career in biological anthropology. With a BA with Honors in Anthropology from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, George entered the Medical School at Michigan. This foreshadowed his life-long commitment to understanding human disease and human variation within a biocultural perspective. He transferred a year later into the Rackham Graduate School in Anthropology at Michigan, and from there he moved into the PhD program at the University of Colorado at Boulder. It was here that he began formulating his early ideas about the biocultural nature of human health and disease, and the forces that shape the emergence and development of disease and human responses to it and experiences of it.

George Armelagos worked within several areas of anthropology in developing and using the biocultural approach (see Chapter 1). Working on human skeletal remains from Sudanese Nubia in the late 1960s for the purposes of his dissertation, George began to piece together the patterns of morbidity, the diseased state, and mortality, or death, that he saw in this skeletal sample and the portion of the ancient population that it represented. As was the custom in the field of paleopathology, the study of ancient disease, at that time, he would only have been expected to publish case studies or single episodes of the more interesting or unusual pathologies. However, George instead drew from the fields of epidemiology and demography to study the patterns of illness and death within a population-level framework (see Chapters 10, 15, and 16). His first published study, “Disease in ancient Nubia” (Armelagos 1969), was holistic and integrative, looking not only at evidence of poor health but also at the cultural and environmental processes that produce poor health and disease (see Chapters 8, 9, and 12). He was able to empirically demonstrate that the patterns of disease evident in the sample were strongly associated with the age and sex of the skeletal individuals, as well as their dietary practices and patterns of consumption. He further demonstrated that temporal changes in patterns of health and disease were evident in the sample and this corresponded to political, economic, and cultural shifts in the larger region. This classic publication, still used in paleopathology seminars, stands as a mile-marker in paleopathology and the biocultural approach.

Figure I.1 George Armelagos with skeletal material from ancient Nubia.

As he developed this bioculturally based approach in subsequent research projects and publications, the perspective began to have widespread influence on the development of biological anthropology overall, medical anthropology, and the cultural ecology of disease (see Chapters 2 and 3). What was so innovative and outside the box about this research perspective, specifically with regard to health, well-being, and disease, is that in the approach, disease was conceptualized as a process, involving multiple levels of analysis on single individuals – from histological and chemical to anatomical – that needed to be understood at a population level and across time and space, using comparative and cross-cultural perspectives. This produced a paradigmatic shift in the way that disease in the past and present was analyzed. In paleopathology, it shifted the field from its previous focus on descriptions of isolated cases of pathology to comprehending both the proximate and ultimate causes of diseases and their diverse manifestations at a population level, a regional level, and throughout time (see Chapters 9, 10, and 21). In medical anthropology and studies of the cultural ecology of disease, George argued for – and through his research demonstrated the utility of – a systematic, integrated, biocultural approach that attended to ecological, social, cultural, and political economic aspects of diseases processes (see Chapters 3–5). An example of the broad appeal of his research was when a new journal entitled Ethnicity and Disease, a broadly multidisciplinary journal publishing research on causal and associative relationships in the etiology of common illnesses through the study of ethnic patterns of disease, came out in the early 1990s. George published a short overview in the first issue entitled “Human evolution and the evolution of human disease” which comprehensively addressed patterns of human health, disease, and co-evolutionary processes with pathogens throughout human history (Armelagos 1991) – no mean feat.

Another area of great interest to George was diet, disease, and nutritional anthropology. At the same time that George was pioneering the study of disease in broad biocultural terms, he was also making in-roads into how diet and disease interact, how food choices and nutrition structure population health, and the evolution and biological impact of changing diet during the population transformation known as the first epidemiologic transition, the increase in dietary disease and mortality from acute, epidemic infectious diseases associated with the shift from foraging to farming during the Neolithic Transition (c. 10 kya) (see Chapters 12, 13, 14, and 18). In 1980, George co-wrote with Peter Farb a text entitled Consuming Passions: The Anthropology of Eating, which explores the anthropological connections between various eating habits and human behavior. This text helped to create the newly emerging field of nutritional anthropology.

Another major contribution that George made to the subdisciplines of both biological anthropology and archaeology was his work with Mark Cohen in bringing together researchers who would address the biological and cultural impacts of this shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture. The resulting edited volume, Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture (1984), is standard reading in most graduate seminars in biological anthropology, paleopathology, bioarchaeology, and related fields. In the text, researchers systematically investigated archaeological and bioarchaeological evidence for the diverse impacts of the agricultural transition during the Neolithic on human health, patterns of fertility, morbidity, and mortality, as well as social stratification and gender equality. This far-reaching text revolutionized how anthropologists conceptualize the effects of subsistence change and economic growth on human health and, more specifically, how bioarchaeologists employ robust empirical data to assess the biological and social impacts of major cultural changes in the archaeological record. Expanding upon these themes, in 1990, George co-edited, with Alan Swedlund, another major set of papers in a volume entitled Disease in Populations in Transition: Anthropological and Epidemiological Perspectives. This text employs an interdisciplinary, biocultural approach to explore factors and processes common to the epidemiologic transitions that human societies have experienced throughout time (see Chapters 11, 12, 14, 17, and 18).

George's contribution to the area of race, racism, and human variation was also biocultural in nature. He has written several of the more important papers on the invalidity of race as a genetic or biological meaningfully category, and as an indicator of behavioral attributes, such as intelligence. These works directly undermine the typological and descriptive work on race and human variation that characterized physical anthropology in the nineteenth to mid twentieth centuries (see Chapter 4 and 5). Instead, they attend to the potency of race – and other forms of social identity – as a social category with great influence on the access to resources, stresses, and well-being that an individual and their community experience throughout the life course (see Chapters 6 and 7). For instance, using empirically derived data from the long chronological prehistory of the Nubians, he demonstrated how in situ adaptive changes in cranial morphology were a function of dietary changes and not due to an intermingling of various Saharan and sub-Saharan “races,” as was being promoted (see Chapters 9 and 12).

Finally, it is safe to say that George was a leader in formulating a biocultural approach in the analysis of human remains and in skeletal biology. George helped to situate the study of ancient and historic human remains within not only a biocultural and ecological context but also an archaeological one. In 2003, he published the article “Bioarchaeology as anthropology” in an edited volume entitled Archaeology is Anthropology, in which he emphasized how bioarchaeology aligned with and embodied the core tenets and objectives of anthropology. Importantly, in this and other works on the subject, he emphasized that bioarchaeological and paleopathological work was most valuable when it addressed issues and generated knowledge that was directly relevant to contemporary populations, whether on the effects of economic and cultural change on health or the multiple purposes for which different kinds of violence were carried out in the past and the varied effects of these behaviors (see Chapters 22 and 23).

Figure I.2 George Armelagos in the company of some of his favorite intellectual forebears.

In all of these areas – biocultural approaches to race and identity, health and diet, social inequality, disease and evolution, and population dynamics throughout time – George helped to shape fundamentally biocultural research questions that could be answered by robust empirical data. George spent his life building elegant and compelling arguments in research areas which he was passionate about, and the case studies in this text bring these interests to life in an engaging and compelling way. George was a man of the people, he disdained jargonistic and overly technical talk and preferred to capture the complexity of his studies in plain speech. And so, we took that as our mandate to ask each of George's students and collaborators to craft their case study in a way that keeps undergraduates, graduate students, and all of those new to the biocultural approach in anthropology engaged. The collective sum of all of his work highlights an original thinker who dedicated himself to his craft and to his students. We dedicate this volume to him and to the legacy of the biocultural approach.

References

Armelagos, G.J. (1969) Disease in ancient Nubia.

Science

,

163

, 255–259.

Armelagos, G.J. (1991) Human evolution and the evolution of disease.

Ethnicity and Disease

,

1

(1), 21–25.

Armelagos, G.J. (2003) Bioarchaeology as anthropology.

Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association

,

13

(1), 27–40.

Armelagos, G.J. and Cohen, M.N. (eds) (1984)

Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture

. Academic Press, New York.

Farb, P. and Armelagos, G.J. (1980).

Consuming Passions: The Anthropology of Eating

. Houghton Mifflin, New York.

Swedlund, A.C. and Armelagos, G.J. (1990)

Disease in Populations in Transition: Anthropological and Epidemiological Perspectives

. Bergin and Garvey, New York.

Chapter 1Introduction: the development of biocultural perspectives in anthropology

Molly K. Zuckerman1 & Debra L. Martin2

1Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures, Mississippi State University

2Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada at Las Vegas

Introduction

Since the mid-twentieth century, the biocultural approach has acted as a cohering and integrative intellectual approach within anthropology, particularly within the subdisciplines of biological, medical, and sociocultural anthropology (Goodman and Leatherman 1998; Goodman et al. 1988). It has provided an avenue for synthetic research that unites and crosscuts these diverse arenas, helping to prevent fragmentation and schisms in the face of increasing specialization. Further, it enables anthropologists to achieve the core anthropological objectives of explaining human behavior across time and space, comprehending cultural similarity, difference, and complexity across space and time, and applying this knowledge to the solution of human problems (AAA 2012). These objectives are obtained by addressing and answering complex research questions through an array of methods, theory, and data from across anthropology and related disciplines, such as demography, public health, medicine, biology, ecology, and geological sciences, with the biocultural approach providing coherence.

Definitions of the biocultural1 approach have varied over the past several decades and, to a certain extent, based on the intellectual enterprise to which it is being applied, but it is characterized by several core themes. Overall, the biocultural approach attends to both the intertwined biological and cultural aspects of any given human phenomena (Levins and Lewontin 1985), explicitly emphasizing the dynamic, dialectical interactions between humans and their larger physical, social, and cultural environments. In this approach, human variation is conceptualized as a function of phenotypic plasticity and responsiveness to factors within these larger environments that both mediate and produce each other (Blakely 1977; Dufour 2006; Van Gerven et al. 1974).

We introduce readers to the development, utility, and applications of the biocultural approach. We provide a short history of its origins and development, and unpack the approach and demonstrate how it translates into a model that can be operated to guide research. Further, we demonstrate the diverse theories and explanatory approaches, methods, and data sets that have been incorporated into the biocultural approach, through the course of its development into its contemporary usage, through a short review of the chapters included in this volume, highlighting the unique applications of the biocultural approach found in each. Importantly, each of the chapters contained within this edited volume has a consistent format. Each is centered around a key concept within the biocultural approach, from the causes and meaning of violence to the effects of colonialism on indigenous communities. Each chapter provides a review of relevant theory, methods, and data, and then delves into a case study, grounded in a real-world human problem that demonstrates the applicability of the biocultural approach to each particular concept and the utility of the approach for generating resolutions and solutions to the problem. We highlight each chapter and case study, emphasizing for readers how the biocultural approach can be used to elucidate, think through, and in some cases productively resolve real-world human problems. While some of these are ostensibly far removed from the lives of modern-day students, such as the effects of agricultural intensification during the Neolithic (c. 10 kya) on human health, readers will see many of their own tribulations and trials reflected in these case studies, from an exploration of what cultural factors motivate violence (see Chapters 22 and 23), to the role that the ‘cleanliness’ of modern environments may play in producing high rates of allergies and asthma (see Chapter 18), to the continuing effects of agricultural diets and sedentary lifestyles on modern-day human health and well-being (see Chapters 3 and 14). While the biocultural approach is a deeply useful analytical tool for exploring the diversity of problems that human societies have faced throughout time, it is also very useful for laying bare just how many of these challenges are shared across societies, time, and space.

The origins and development of the biocultural approach

The biocultural approach has a rich and varied history in anthropology, which is discussed in greater detail in Zuckerman and Armelagos (2011). Here, we provide a short survey of its origins and development.

The biocultural approach has its origins within biological anthropology, though for much of its history biological anthropology was deeply uninterested in the humanistic, cultural, and historical inquiries that have characterized the other anthropological subdisciplines since their nineteenth-century emergence (Armelagos and Goodman 1998). Instead, throughout the nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, biological anthropologists were devoted to descriptive attempts to establish racial typologies for various regions and cultural contexts, largely through cranial morphology and other phenotypic traits. This focus did not shift until the 1950s, with the Holocaust, eugenic science, and the fall of colonialism, all of which demonstrated to physical anthropologists the disastrous, real-world applications of racial classification and typological thinking (Armelagos and Goodman 1998; Blakey 1987). This paradigmatic shift coincided with the development of the population approach in the biological sciences, which emphasized population-level rather than individual-level analyses and investigation of characteristics in breeding populations. This perspective provided an avenue for biological anthropologists to investigate the mechanics and effects of evolutionary processes in human populations for the first time. This development was augmented by the introduction of Washburn's (1951, 1953) “new physical anthropology” to the field, which proposed a strategic redirection from typological thinking towards synthetic, theory-driven research, and hypothesis testing based on models of evolution and adaptation.

At the end of the 1950s, Livingstone (1958), in what is widely regarded as one of the first truly biocultural works in anthropology, cohered these trends into an investigation of the complex relationships between the adoption of agriculture in West Africa, the protective effect of sickle cell anemia on malaria, and the ecology of the Anopheles mosquito that carries the plasmodium parasite that causes malaria. This study not only was one of the first to conceptualize the “environment” as more than just external physical conditions, it also struck a wedge into typological thinking about phenotypic and genetic traits as static “racial markers” (Dufour 2006). Livingstone's use of deep time to unravel the complexities of contemporary health problems is one of the foundational components of the biocultural approach, as is his entanglement of humans with many aspects of their environments, including insect vectors and changing ecologies. Together, these advances mark the beginnings of the development of the biocultural approach (Armelagos 2008).

Between the 1960s and the 1980s, the biocultural approach matured under the influences of ecological anthropology and political economy. Livingstone's work launched research within biological anthropology exploring human adaptability, which includes genetic adaptation, and non-genetic acclimatization and phenotypic plasticity in response to a wide range of environmental and social stressors (see Chapter 2