Skeletons in Our Closet: Revealing Our Past Through Bioarcha

By closely examining human biological remains, mostly bones, bioarcheologists explore ""the lives and lifestyles of human beings in the past."" Larsen (Bioarchaeology), professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina, here argues convincingly that a person's ""skeleton is sensitive to the environment, from well before birth through the years of infancy, childhood, and adulthood."" In great detail, he demonstrates how a competent expert may read an enormous amount from the subtle patterns present on bones. Bone density and shape provide clues to work habits; lesions to rates of infection; dental cavities and the ratio of isotopes of carbon in bones to dietary preferences; patterns of osteoarthritis to repetitive daily activities. Larsen summarizes his own research findings and, by dealing with North American populations spanning thousands of years, demonstrates how robust his methodology is. Whether he is dealing with the remains of the first humans on the continent undergoing the transition from foraging to farming, indigenous populations first encountering Europeans, those Europeans themselves or settlers in Maryland and Illinois in the 1600s and 1800s, respectively, Larsen draws notable conclusions. Counter to traditional dogma, he claims, for example, that the transition to farming is usually associated with a decrease in standard of living and that the dramatic collapse in indigenous populations upon contact with Europeans was due to a constellation of factors rather than to the introduction of novel diseases such as smallpox. Although Larsen's text can be repetitive, there is much in it to provoke debate. (June)