This volume features bioarchaeological research that interrogates the human skeleton in concert with material culture, ethnographic data and archival research. This approach provides examples of how these intersections of inquiry can be used to consider the larger social and political contexts in which people lived and the manner in which they died. Bioarchaeologists are in a unique position to develop rich interpretations of the lived experiences of skeletonized individuals. Using their skills in multiple contexts, bioarchaeologists are also situated to consider the ethical nature and inherent humanity of the research collections that have been used because they represent deceased for whom there are records identifying them. These collections have been the basis for generating basic information regarding the human skeletal transcript. Ironically though, these collections themselves have not been studied with the same degree of understanding and interpretation that is applied to archaeological collections.

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.

Bioarchaeology of Marginalized People amplifies the voices of marginalized or powerless individuals. Following previous work done by physical anthropologists on the biology of poverty, this volume focuses on the voices of past actors who would normally be subsumed within a cohort or whose stories represent those of the minority. The physical effects of marginalization – manifest as skeletal markers of stress and disease – are read in their historical contexts to better understand vulnerability and the social determinants of health in the past. Bioarchaeological, archaeological, and historical datasets are integrated to explore the varied ways in which individuals may be marginalized both during and after their lifespan. By focusing on previously excluded voices this volume enriches our understanding of the lived experience of individuals in the past. This volume queries the diverse meanings of marginalization, from physical or social peripheralization, to identity loss within a majority population, to a collective forgetting that excludes specific groups. Contributors to the volume highlight the histories of individuals who did not record their own stories, including two disparate Ancient Egyptian women and individuals from a high-status Indigenous cemetery in British Columbia. Additional chapters examine the marginalized individuals whose bodies comprise the Robert J. Terry anatomical collection and investigate inequalities in health status in individuals from Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Modern clinical population health research is examined through a historical lens, bringing a new perspective to the critical public health interventions occurring today. Together, these papers highlight the role that biological anthropologists play both in contributing to and challenging the marginalization of past populations. - Highlights the histories and stories of individuals whose voices were silenced, such as workhouse inmates, migrants, those of low socioeconomic status, the chronically ill, and those living in communities without a written language - Provides a holistic and more complete understanding of the lived experiences of the past, as well as changes in populations through time - Offers an interdisciplinary discussion with contributions from a wide variety of international authors

Archaeologists have long used skeletal remains to identify gender. As the contributors to this volume reveal, combining skeletal data with contextual information can provide a richer understanding of life in the past.

This volume is a resource for bioarchaeologists interested in using a structural violence framework to better understand and contextualize the lived experiences of past populations. One of the most important elements of bioarchaeological research is the study of health disparities in past populations. This book offers an analysis of such work, but with the benefit of an overarching theoretical framework. It examines the theoretical framework used by scholars in cultural and medical anthropology to explore how social, political, and/or socioeconomic structures and institutions create inequalities resulting in health disparities for the most vulnerable or marginalized segments of contemporary populations. It then takes this framework and shows how it can allow researchers in bioarchaeology to interpret such socio-cultural factors through analyzing human skeletal remains of past populations. The book discusses the framework and its applications based on two main themes: the structural violence of gender inequality and the structural violence of social and socioeconomic inequalities.

Bioarchaeology has relied on Darwinian perspectives and biocultural models to communicate information about the lives of past peoples. This book demonstrates how further theoretical expansion—a thoughtful engagement with critical social theorizing—can contribute insightful and more ethical outcomes. To do so, it focuses on social theoretical concepts of pertinence to bioarchaeological studies: habitus, the normal, intersectionality, necropolitics, and bioethos. These concepts can deepen study of plasticity, disease, gender, violence, and race and ethnicity, as well as advance the field’s decolonization efforts. This book also works to overcome the challenges presented by dense social theorizing, which has paid little attention to real bodies. It historicizes, explains, and adapts concepts, as well as discusses archaeological, historic, and contemporary case studies from around the world. Theorizing Bioarchaeology is intended for individuals who may have initially dismissed social theorizing as postmodern but now acknowledge this characterization as oversimplified. It is for readers who foster curiosity about bioarchaeology’s contradictions and common sense. The ideas contained in these pages may also be of use to students who know that it is naive at best and myopic at worst to presume data derived from bodies speak for themselves.