ANTHROP 1AA3 Lecture Notes - Blunt Trauma, Pearl Hunting, Exostosis
4 Apr 2013
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Document Summary
The study of the human skeleton in an archaeological context: health, diet. Not just what did people eat but what about differences within populations. Did access to food have to do with status: habitual activities. Activities that leave traces on the skeleton: mobility. Paleopathology-study of health and disease in past populations. We can only look at those conditions that leave traces on the skeleton. Patterns of illness and disease tie these patterns to some cultural aspects: sex, age-risk for children, status-assumed that higher status means better health but sometimes this is not the case, time-do we see changes in patterns over timen. Don"t see sunlights for days on end, what you see is that extended periods of vitamin d deficiency you see bending and fracture of bones caused by this. Bones don"t mineralize properly, bones are not strong; pressure of actually walking and the fact that bones are not strong, they will bend.
