Bioarchaeology in perspective: From classifications of the dead to conditions of the living

At no other time in either the history of physical anthropology or its flagship journal, the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, has there been such strong interest in the central role that human remains from archaeological settings play in developing an understanding of the remarkably dynamic last 10,000 years of the history, evolution, and contextual circumstances surrounding the human condition. Over the course of my association with bioarchaeology, I have watched the expanding interest in the study of the remains of post-Pleistocene humans as expressed in the number of articles in the pages of the AJPA, increasing class enrollments and student interest generally, number of faculty positions, summer field schools around the globe, graduate student interest and recruiting, volume of presentations at the annual meetings of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, growth in other related professional societies (e.g., Paleopathology Association, Dental Anthropology Association, British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology), new peer-reviewed journals, book series, and presence in electronic news media. I knew that bones and teeth were amazingly interesting when I took my first osteology course taught by William Bass in my freshman year at Kansas State University, but I had no idea of the broad extent of the fund of data archaeological human skeletons provide for addressing hypotheses and questions about the human past, especially as these questions pertain to environment viewed broadly—diet, nutrition, climate, social and cultural circumstances, health, lifestyle, activity, biological relatedness, and social, cultural, and population dynamics. As bioarchaeology has shown, a person's skeleton contains their cumulative record of lived experiences and conditions, and skeletons from community cemeteries provide a record over many generations. Moreover, the individual and community genetic history gives us a baseline for addressing questions of how population history—from marriage patterns to large scale mobility—has shaped human biology through time and space. Bioarchaeology has a long history around the world (O'Donnabhain Pechinkina Stojanowski Larsen, 2015). Rather, I focus on some of the research trends in building today's integrative, contextual study of human skeletal remains derived from archaeological settings. I emphasize from the onset that bioarchaeological study today places skeletons derived from archaeological settings in context, including, but not limited to, environment, stressors present, availability of particular resources (especially dietary), social and cultural influences, and other factors that shape life conditions and the life course, many of which are accumulated directly or as indirect outcomes, a process commencing when skeletal and dental tissues begin to form in utero and concluding only at death (Agarwal, 2016; Martin, Harrod, In addition, other of were some of which on of large of skeletal such as at to the of the and the onset of very of the research and the volume of bioarchaeology in various in the from the record that in were by a of I that become as research in the Rather, as the record of in some The that is is that humans and a a that well the The has been by the in and of that has in from bones and a volume of the research is on especially such as by and and & & 2016). 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