The Routledge Handbook of Paleopathology provides readers with an overview of the study of ancient disease.
The volume begins by exploring current methods and techniques employed by paleopathologists as means to highlight the range of data that can be generated, the types of questions that can be methodologically addressed, our current limitations, and goals for the future. Building on these foundations, the volume introduces a range of diseases and conditions that have been noted in the fossil, archaeological, and historical record, offering readers a foundational understanding of pathological conditions, along with their potential etiologies. Importantly, an evolutionary and highly contextualized assessment of diseases and conditions will be presented in order to demonstrate the need for adopting anthropological, biological, and clinical approaches when exploring the past and interpreting the modern world. The volume concludes with the contextualization of paleopathological research. Chapters highlight ways in which analyses of health and disease in skeletal and mummified remains reflect political and social constructs of the past and present. Health and disease are tackled within evolutionary perspectives across deep time and generationally, and the nuanced interplay between disease and behavior is explored.
The volume will be indispensable for archaeologists, bioarchaeologists, and historians, and those in medical fields, as it reflects current scholarship within paleopathology and the field’s impact on our understanding of health and disease in the past, the present, and implications for our future.
Author(s): Anne L. Grauer
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 691
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Boxes and Tables
List of Contributors
Foreword
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
PART I: Applications, Methods, and Techniques in Paleopathology
2 The Macroscopic Study of Human Skeletal Paleopathology
3 Differential Diagnosis and Rigor in Paleopathology
4 Epidemiology and Mathematical Modeling
5 Paleohistopathology: History, Technical Aspects, and Diagnostic Challenges
6 Paleoradiology
7 Isotopes in Paleopathology
8 Genetics and Genomics
9 Parasitology and Paleopathology
10 Historical Sources, Historiography, and Paleopathology
11 Osteobiography and Case Studies
12 Mummified Remains
PART II: Investigating Diseases and Conditions of the Past
13 “Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones”: Traumatic Injuries in Paleopathology
14 Developmental Conditions in Paleopathology
15 Tumors and Neoplastic Diseases: Assessing Antiquity and Pondering Prevalence
16 Treponemal Infection
17 Here and Now, There and Then: Two Mycobacterial Diseases Still with Us Today
18 Paleopathology of Infectious Diseases
19 Metabolic and Endocrine Diseases
20 Dental Disease
PART III: Theoretical Approaches and New Directions
21 Ethical Considerations for Paleopathology
22 Synthesizing Stress in Paleopathological Perspective: Theory, Method, Application
23 Theoretical Approaches to the Paleopathology of Infants, Children, and Adolescents: Structural Violence as a Holistic Interpretive Tool in Paleopathology
24 Issues of Gender, Identity, and Agency in Paleopathology
25 Disability and Care in the Bioarchaeological Record: Meeting the Challenges of Being Human
26 Defining the Margins, Embodying the Consequences
27 Interpreting Trauma and Social Violence from Skeletal Remains
28 The Developmental Origins of Health and Disease: Implications for Paleopathology
29 Disease in the Fossil Record
30 Zooarchaeology and the Paleopathological Record
31 Plagues and Pandemics
32 Public Perceptions of Paleopathology and the Future of Outreach
33 Big Pictures in 21st-Century Paleopathology: Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity
Index
