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.
1. Introduction
Anne L. Grauer
PART I: Applications, Methods, and Techniques in Paleopathology
2. The Macroscopic Study of Human Skeletal Paleopathology
Simon Mays
3. Differential Diagnosis and Rigor in Paleopathology
Jo Appleby
4. Epidemiology and Mathematical Modeling
Samantha L. Yaussy
5. Paleohistopathology: History, Technical Aspects, and Diagnostic Challenges
Sandra Assis and Hans H. de Boer
6. Paleoradiology
Chiara Villa and Marie Louise Jørkov
7. Isotopes in Paleopathology
Chris Stantis and Ellen J. Kendall
8. Genetics and Genomics
Susanna Sabin and Anne C. Stone
9. Parasitology and Paleopathology
Aida R. Barbera, Morgana Camacho and Karl Reinhard
10. Historical Sources, Historiography, and Paleopathology
Piers D. Mitchell
11. Osteobiography and Case Studies.
Alexis T. Boutin
12. Mummified Remains
Ken Nystrom, Dario Piombino-Mascali, Jane E. Buikstra and Lucia Watson Jiménez
PART II: Investigating Diseases and Conditions of the Past
13. “Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones”: Traumatic Injuries in Paleopathology
Jennifer F. Byrnes and Katherine Gaddis
14. Developmental Conditions in Paleopathology
Anne R. Titelbaum, Scott E. Burnett and D. Troy Case
15. Tumors and Neoplastic Diseases: Assessing Antiquity and Pondering Prevalence
Casey L. Kirkpatrick
16. Treponemal Infection
Brenda J. Baker
17. Here and Now, There and Then: Two Mycobacterial Diseases Still with Us Today
Charlotte A. Roberts, Kelly E. Blevins, Kori Lea Filipek and Aryel Pacheco Miranda
18. Paleopathology of Infectious Diseases
Olivier Dutour
19. Metabolic and Endocrine Diseases
Megan B. Brickley and Brianne Morgan
20. Dental Disease
Jaime Ullinger and Tisa Loewen
PART III: Theoretical Approaches and New Directions
21. Ethical Considerations for Paleopathology
Carlina de la Cova
22. Synthesizing Stress in Paleopathological Perspective: Theory, Method, Application
Daniel H. Temple and Haagen D. Klaus
23. Theoretical Approaches to the Paleopathology of Infants, Children, and Adolescents: Structural Violence as a Holistic Interpretive Tool in Paleopathology
Siân E. Halcrow and Gwen Robbins Schug
24. Issues of Gender, Identity, and Agency in Paleopathology
Pamela K. Stone and Adam Netzer Zimmer
25. Disability and Care in the Bioarchaeological Record: Meeting the Challenges of Being Human
Lorna Tilley
26. Defining the Margins, Embodying the Consequences
Madeleine Mant and Lauren September Poeta
27. Interpreting Trauma and Social Violence from Skeletal Remains
Debra L. Martin, Aurora Marcela Pérez-Flórez, Claira Ralston and Ryan P. Harrod
28. The Developmental Origins of Health and Disease: Implications for Paleopathology
Rebecca Gowland and Jennifer L. Caldwell
29. Disease in the Fossil Record
Florian Witzmann and Patrick Asbach
30. Zooarchaeology and the Paleopathological Record
László Bartosiewicz and Khashaiar Mansouri
31. Plagues and Pandemics
Sharon N. DeWitte, Ziyu R.Wang and Saige Kelmelis
32. Public Perceptions of Paleopathology and the Future of Outreach
Kristina Killgrove and Jane E. Buikstra
33. Big Pictures in 21st-Century Paleopathology: Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity
Jane E. Buikstra, Elizabeth W. Uhl and Amanda Wissler
Biography
Anne L. Grauer, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Loyola University Chicago, USA.
