Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
of a once living person. When faced with dry bones, it can be easy to forget that the skeleton
once was not only a dynamic living thing, but it had a very specific purpose, reflected in its
morphology. This was not just on the level of the individual, but reflecting long-term evolu-
tion, on the level of the population (defined below) as well. We therefore study the skeleton to
learn about the individual and the population overall.
In biological anthropology, we are interested in studying human populations, as stated.
A human population can be defined as a group of individuals who are contemporaneous,
occupy relatively the same area geographically, have a shared culture (language, traditions,
belief systems, etc.), and who tend to find mates from within the same group. For example,
a population in prehistory can consist of all of the people under Inca rule in South America
between 1400 and 1532 A.D., or it can be the people who lived in the city of Cuzco (the Inca
capital) during the same time. We also make a distinction between the population and the
sample that we have access to as a result of what was recovered archaeologically. Recovery
and preservation bias will affect which individuals of the population are recovered,
2
and
therefore this will affect the types of questions we are able to pose. We try to comprise our
samples so that they are representative of the population overall, but as stated, sometimes
this is not possible. We may also choose specific demographics of individuals from within
the sample to study. Therefore, a sample can be individuals falling into each age cohort
from an Incan cemetery in Cuzco, or all the females of child-bearing age from that same
cemetery in Cuzco, or only the high-status individuals who were ethnically Inca (as opposed
to high-status people of other ethnicities ruled by the Inca), and so forth.
Because each population of people experiences life in a particular way given environ-
mental (e.g., nutrition, climate, presence of disease), cultural
3
(e.g., differential access to
resources, psychosocial stress, activity level), and evolutionary forces (e.g., gene flow result-
ing from people from different populations mating with each other
4
), populations differ from
one another and this is often recorded in many ways in the bones of individuals in the archae-
ologically recovered skeletal sample. We refer to the experience of each population as pop-
ulation history.
Bones record basic biological characteristics of an individual (age, sex, ancestry, and
stature);
5
how that individual may have fit into their society or experienced life (via social
status, occupation, diet, disease, etc.);
6
and other aspects such as a person's geographical
place of origin;
7
the demographic profile of populations and relationships between different
2
See DiGangi and Moore (Chapter 2) and Smith (Chapter 7), this volume.
3
Cultural and environmental factors are inextricably linked. For example, while diet (foods eaten) may be
dictated by the environment (what can grow and what types of animals are present), the culture (society)
decides what is edible, what will be grown (for horticultural or agricultural societies), and who will have
access to the most preferential food items.
4
See Cabana et al. (Chapter 16), this volume, for a discussion of evolutionary forces and how they affect
populations.
5
See Uhl (Chapter 3); Moore (Chapter 4); DiGangi and Hefner (Chapter 5); Moore and Ross (Chapter 6);
Hammerl (Chapter 10); Trammell and Kroman (Chapter 13), this volume.
6
See Smith (Chapter 7); Hammerl (Chapter 10); Bethard (Chapter 15), this volume.
7
See DiGangi and Hefner (Chapter 5); Bethard (Chapter 15); Cabana et al. (Chapter 16), this volume.
