Paleopathology in Perspective
Bone Health and Disease through Time
By (author) Elizabeth Weiss San Jose State University
Publication date:
18 December 2014Length of book:
266 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersDimensions:
237x163mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9780759124035
Our bones can reveal fascinating information about how we have lived, from the food we have eaten to our levels of activity and the infections and injuries we have suffered. Elizabeth Weiss introduces readers to how lifestyle—in complex interaction with biology, genes, and environment—affects health in this distinctive tour of human osteology, past and present.
Centering on health issues that have arisen in the last 50 to 60 years rather than thousands of years ago, Paleopathology in Perspective is organized around particular bone traits such as growth patterns, back pains, infections, and oral health. Each chapter explains one category of traits and reviews data drawn from both ancient and more contemporary populations to explore how global trait trends have changed over time. Weiss also considers the likely causes of these changes—for example, the growth of obesity, increased longevity, and greater intensity of childhood sports. Taking a long view of bones, as Weiss clearly demonstrates, provides clues not just about how ancient humans once lived, but also how biology and behavior, lifestyle and health, remain intrinsically linked.
Centering on health issues that have arisen in the last 50 to 60 years rather than thousands of years ago, Paleopathology in Perspective is organized around particular bone traits such as growth patterns, back pains, infections, and oral health. Each chapter explains one category of traits and reviews data drawn from both ancient and more contemporary populations to explore how global trait trends have changed over time. Weiss also considers the likely causes of these changes—for example, the growth of obesity, increased longevity, and greater intensity of childhood sports. Taking a long view of bones, as Weiss clearly demonstrates, provides clues not just about how ancient humans once lived, but also how biology and behavior, lifestyle and health, remain intrinsically linked.
This book is an important resource for students of ancient disease. It successfully integrates paleopathological and modern biomedical data to provide an overview of how socio-economic and lifestyle factors affect the frequency of bone and dental diseases from prehistory to the present day. Technical jargon is kept to a minimum, each substantive chapter ends with a concise conclusions section summarizing the main points, and there is an up-to-date and extensive bibliography.