A Companion to Paleopathology

Front Cover
Anne L. Grauer
John Wiley & Sons, Jan 19, 2016 - Social Science - 632 pages

A Companion to Paleopathology offers a comprehensive overview of this rapidly growing sub- field of physical anthropology.

  • Presents a broad overview of the field of paleopathology, integrating theoretical and methodological approaches to understand biological and disease processes throughout human history
  • Demonstrates how paleopathology sheds light on the past through the analysis of human and non-human skeletal materials, mummified remains and preserved tissue
  • Integrates scientific advances in multiple fields that contribute to the understanding of ancient and historic diseases, such as epidemiology, histology, radiology, parasitology, dentistry, and molecular biology, as well as archaeological, archival and historical research.
  • Highlights cultural processes that have an impact on the evolution of illness, death and dying in human populations, including subsistence strategies, human environmental adaptations, the effects of malnutrition, differential access to resources, and interpersonal and intercultural violence
 

Contents

Approaches Perspectives and Issues 15
15
of the Biocultural Approach
34
The Bioarchaeological Approach to Paleopathology
58
The Molecular Biological Approach in Paleopathology
76
Understanding Past Diet
97
An Epidemiological Approach to Paleopathology
114
The Promise the Problems and the Future of
133
The Analysis and Interpretation of Mummified Remains
152
the Gap Between Physicists and Paleopathologists
324
Data and Data Analysis Issues in Paleopathology
339
Current Understandings
357
Developmental Disorders in the Skeleton
380
Metabolic and Endocrine Diseases
401
Problems of Differential Diagnosis in Paleopathology
420
Developments in Bioarchaeological
434
Leprosy Hansens disease Niels Lynnerup and Jesper Boldsen
458

Archaeoparasitology
170
Relationships Through Animal Paleopathology
191
How Does The History of Paleopathology Predict its Future? Mary Lucas Powell and Della Collins Cook
214
Methods and Techniques of Inquiry 225
227
Differential Diagnosis and Issues in Disease Classification
250
Estimating Age and Sex from the Skeleton
268
The Relationship Between Paleopathology
285
Integrating Historical Sources with Paleopathology
310
Past Present and Future
472
Interpreting
492
Joint Disease
513
The Reconstruction of Activity
531
Context Concepts
553
Index
582
Copyright

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About the author (2016)

Anne L. Grauer is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Loyola University Chicago. She is the editor of Bodies of Evidence: Reconstructing History Through Skeletal Analysis (1995) and co-editor of Sex and Gender in Paleopathological Perspective (with Stuart-Macadam, 1998). She has served on the editorial board of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, the executive board of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, and is a past President of the Paleopathology Association.

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