Intro to Bioarchaeology

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Our life stories are embodied in our skeletons. Injury, illness, habitual activity, and the processes of growing up and growing old, impact skeletal tissue in ways that can be observed and analyzed scientifically and used to reconstruct how an individual—or an entire community—lived and died. Bioarchaeology is an interdisciplinary science which examines human osteology and skeletal biology within the context of the social, cultural, and environmental contexts in which people lived in the past. This course will provide an introduction to bioarchaeology and explore what researchers can learn by studying skeletons, including a person’s biological profile (approximate age, biological sex, and ancestry), health (diet, stature, healed or active infections or injuries, and indicators of stress), and social identity (funerary treatments suggesting status, cultural affinity, and spirituality). Students will learn examples of how both individual and population-wide studies of human remains influence how we understand complex topics related to health, identity, and lifeways in the premodern world. The course will overview standard methods for analyzing human remains (skeletal anatomy and paleopathology) as well as advanced methods such as stable isotope analysis, scientific imaging, and ancient DNA (aDNA).