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This project creates three large databases to reinterpret
the history of human health in Europe from the late Paleolithic
era to the early twentieth century. During this period,
human health and welfare were transformed enormously by
the transition from foraging to farming; the rise of cities
and complex forms of social and political organization;
European colonization; and industrialization. With a trans-Atlantic
network of collaborators, we will undertake large-scale
comparative studies of the causes and health consequences
of these and other dramatic changes in arrangements for
work, living, and human interaction.
Most social scholars outside of anthropology are unfamiliar
with the research potential of skeletons. Yet, these are
the best source available for measuring and analyzing very
long-term trends in health, especially in preliterate cultures
and in historical societies with few written records available
for study. Even in populations of the modern era, skeletal
data can inform the study of health. To obtain this evidence,
we are building upon a similar but smaller NSF-sponsored
project devoted to the Western Hemisphere. By sending M.A.
and Ph.D. students to museums to collect health information
from approximately 60,000 archaeological skeletons of people
who lived at over 350 localities, we are creating an empirical
basis for reinterpreting the health history of Europe. Following
training to implement our coding manual, these graduate
students will gather information for estimating age and
sex, along with data on specific diseases such as tuberculosis
and on several standard health indicators including height,
and the presence of lesions associated with infections,
dental problems, and degenerative joint disease. Project
researchers will also create a second database by scouring
the published and the gray literature of site reports that
we estimate contain information on the average heights of
100,000 to 150,000 men and women who lived in Europe over
the past 10 millennia. All raw data will be sent via the
Internet to a central processing center at Ohio State University
for cleaning, storage, analysis, and eventual distribution.
In collaboration with archaeologists and museum curators,
the graduate students will prepare brief site reports that
summarize the findings on health indicators; describe the
cultural, economic, and social contexts of the sites; and
provide information on the local environment in which these
people lived. These last components will be enhanced substantially
by the creation of a third database, containing systematically
collected information about these sites from sources available
in the field of climate history and from additional archaeological
and historical sources. In addition, we will link the information
on each collection to site-specific Geographic Information
System (GIS) databases containing information on local ecology
that will be corrected, where possible, for historical changes
in environmental conditions. The reports will be published
in a new Web-based journal devoted to the project, titled
Global Bioarchaeology, to be edited by the PIs.
The principal investigators will widely advertise the research
project at professional meetings to seek feedback on preliminary
results, on specific research themes, and on potential collaborators.
These activities will help pave the way to four major conferences
planned for comparative study and publication. Pre-conferences
will review major results in comparative perspective, define
specific topics for the larger conferences, and discuss
additional research collaborators. The anticipated conference
themes are: (1) health, climate and habitat; (2) health
and the transition to farming; (3) the social and economic
causes and consequences of long-term changes in health;
and (4) the health of women and children. Near the end of
the project, we will create a program to assist 10 Ph.D.
students in using the data for dissertations.
These data have enormous potential to address other large
problems, several of which the PIs will pursue in other
proposals, including (1) long-term trends in patterns of
trauma and violence; (2) biological inequality; (3) aging
and health; (4) health during the rise and fall of civilizations;
(5) geographic patterns of health; (6) degenerative joint
disease and work; (7) analysis of population genetics and
migration patterns using ancient DNA, and (8) use of DNA
from specific pathogens to study the co-evolution of humans
and pathogenic organisms.
1 Ohio State University; 2
UC Santa Barbara
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