The Bioarchaeology of Individuals

by Stodder, Ann L. W.; Palkovich, Ann M.; Larsen, Clark Spencer

• ISBN13: 9780813038070
• ISBN10: 0813038073
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-04-22
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Florida

Summary

"Harnessing the concept of 'the power of one,' this book guides the reader into the past using carefully woven biographies rich in detail and scope."--Anne L. Grauer, Loyola University, Chicago "The populational approach to bioarchaeology tends to be monochrome in its efforts to answer broader research-oriented questions. This volume splashes the past with color through a select group of individuals who actually experienced it."--Margaret A. Judd, University of Pittsburgh From Bronze Age Thailand to Viking Iceland, from an Egyptian oasis to a family farm in Canada, The Bioarchaeology of Individuals invites readers to unearth the daily lives of people throughout history. Covering a span of more than four thousand years of human history and focusing on individuals who lived between 3200 BC and the nineteenth century, the essays in this book examine the lives of nomads, warriors, artisans, farmers, and healers. The contributors employ a wide range of tools, including traditional macroscopic skeletal analysis, bone chemistry, ancient DNA, grave contexts, and local legends, sagas, and other historical information. The collection as a whole presents a series of osteobiographies--profiles of the lives of specific individuals whose remains were excavated from archaeological sites. The result offers a more "personal" approach to mortuary archaeology; this is a book about people--not just bones.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. vii
List of Tables	p. xi
Foreword	p. xiii
Osteobiography and Bioarchaeology	p. 1
Ancestors and Descendants
The Magician: An Ancestral Hopi Leader	p. 11
The Axed Man of Mosfell: Skeletal Evidence of a Viking Age Homicide, the Icelandic Sagas, and Feud	p. 26
Legendary Chamorro Strength: Skeletal Embodiment and the Boundaries of Interpretation	p. 44
Mortuary Evidence for Maya Political Resistance and Religious Syncretism in Colonial Belize	p. 68
Ancient Travelers and "Others"
Social Marginalization among the Chiribaya: The Curandero of Yaral, Southern Peru	p. 85
A Neolithic Nomad from Dakhleh Oasis	p. 96
Lesley: A Unique Bronze Age Individual from Southeastern Arabia	p. 113
The "African Queen": A Portuguese Mystery	p. 127
Craftsmen and Artisans
Sew Long? The Osteobiography of a Woman from Medieval Polis, Cyprus	p. 151
A Master Artisan? Tribute to the Founder" of a Teotihuacán Apartment Compound	p. 162
Vulcan: Skilled Village Craftsman of Ban Chiang, Thailand	p. 177
Written in Stone, Written in Bone: The Osteobiography of a Bronze Age Craftsman from Alalakh	p. 193
Farm and Village
Life and Death of a Mother and Child in Nineteenth-Century Ontario, Canada	p. 217
Thumbprints of a Midwife: Birth and Infant Death in an Ancient Pueblo Community	p. 229
Reading a Life: A Fourteenth-Century Ancestral Puebloan Woman	p. 242
From Cradle to Grave and Beyond: A Maya Life and Death	p. 255
List of Contributors	p. 271
Index	p. 277
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