Archival Research on Human Health and Demography

Archival materials are an important resource for biological anthropologists, providing high-quality data to address a variety of research questions. Archives often contain both quantitative and qualitative data, offering a multidimensional view of population structure, disease dynamics, and evolutionary processes. Major types of archival data include vital statistics, census data, church records, and government or institutional data. This review discusses primary methods that biological anthropologists use with archival materials and provides a critique of research in this area over the past five decades. Advances in digital technologies promise improved accessibility and analytical capabilities. These new technologies, including artificial intelligence, raise ethical concerns, however, as many archives were assembled under conditions that did not require the consent or autonomy of those represented. The article concludes by discussing ethical concerns and how emerging tools may reshape anthropological inquiry.