This course is about interpreting past human life-ways, health and ill-health from the skeleton. Life-ways and health are examined by way of skeletal and dental manifestations of disease, physiological stress, injury (trauma) and violent death, physical activity (basket weaving to spear throwing), tooth use and diet, and demographic histories. Emphasis is on the interactions between biology and behaviour and the influences of environment and culture. The multidisciplinary nature of reconstructing the lives of the dead is explored by way of the manner in which socio-cultural anthropology, archaeology, bioanthropology, chemistry, molecular biology, medicine and a host of other disciplines inform this research.

Students will be introduced to a wide range of techniques and approaches used to identify and then interpret the skeletal and dental markers left by microscopic pathogens and human occupations. We will trace the history of human health and biologically sensitive behaviours from the time of our early Pliocene forebears living millions of years ago through to the profound changes that occurred with the agricultural revolution and onto reconstructing the lives of paupers and aristocrats in our recent historically documented past. Students are strongly urged to have taken or be enrolled in BIAN3015 Human Skeletal Analysis.

(1) meet the stipulated course aims

(2) become familiar and comfortable with a broad sample of scholarship in this disciplinary area

(3) augment the student's the ability to think critically about basic assumptions and conceptual frameworks in this field

(4) develop skills in oral presentations, including debate, and in writing

Annotated bibliography (25%), differential Diagnosis (20%), tutorial participation (5%) and final paper (50%).

2 hours of lectures and one hour of tutorials per week

Two first year courses in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology (ANTH, ARCH, PREH) and/or the School of Botany and Zoology. This course is intended to complement BIAN2119, which focuses more on living populations. Biological anthropology students are recommended to take both.

Larsen, C.S. Bioarchaeology. Interpreting Behavior From the Human Skeleton. Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Hoppa, R.D. and Fitzgerald, C.M. (eds). Human Growth in the Past: Studies from Bones and Teeth. Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Katzenberg, M.A. and Saunders, S.R. (eds). Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton. Wiley-Liss, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2000.
Roberts, C. and Manchester, K. The Archaeology of Disease. Cornell University Press, 1997.