Why are humans so intensely interested in our past? We invest very substantial resources in a quest to reconstruct what our ancestors looked like and how they lived. We spend equally substantial resources to leave behind something of ourselves for those who follow us. This preoccupation with the past is pervasive throughout human societies today. It is manifest in specialists ranging from people who memorize and can repeat the folk traditions and history of small ethnic groups to historians with endowed chairs at major universities who publish heavy tomes on the subject. This focus on the past presumably has been part of human culture for at least the past 10,000 years. A partial reason for this interest is that who we are today rests on the accumulated knowledge and innovations of our ancestors. This means that an understanding of our past informs and empowers our present and gives us a sense of the future for ourselves and our descendants.
Historical documents of various kinds provide us with much of what we know about written human history. As important as this dimension of human history is, much about our knowledge of past human societies depends on other types of information. Written history tends to highlight the social and political elite. If we wish to know about other aspects of past human societies, other sources of information must be utilized. Archaeology provides a different view of these societies that generally is less specific than written history. However, archaeological data tend to be more representative of the total population. It also gives us access to knowledge of past human societies for which there are no written records or where these records may be inadequate. One focus of archaeological excavation is architectural structures, which usually have associated cultural artifacts. Another emphasis is on cemeteries where funerary artifacts and human skeletons provide a rich lode of data on past societies. Discard deposits, such as the often large shell middens of eastern North America, are another important source of information, particularly on food resources as revealed by animal xivremains. The physical remains of humans, nonhuman animals, and plants associated with past human societies provide a major source of data on those human groups.
The emergence and application of new methods, including remarkable technological innovations, in the study of past human groups particularly in the last quarter century has provided insights that were certainly beyond my imagination when I began my career as a biological (physical) anthropologist more than 40 years ago. In the current study of osteology, powerful statistical methods have become critical tools in advancing our understanding of biological changes that have occurred. Analytical procedures for identifying isotopes and biomolecules in biological materials excavated from archaeological sites offer remarkable strategies for exploring new dimensions of past human relationships and activities. All of these diverse sources of data are best interpreted in a theoretical context that integrates biological and cultural data.
Perhaps the most important development in the study of past human societies is the emergence of bioarchaelogy as an interpretative framework for the diverse data obtained today. In the Preface to this book, Buikstra discusses the somewhat different emphases of bioarchaeological research in European versus American endeavors, but for scholars in both areas, integration of cultural and biological data is central. Because culture is such an important component of human society, human biology must be understood in the context of the associated culture. This linkage brings a far richer understanding of biological data than the latter alone.
The emergence of bioarchaeology as an important interpretative framework has its roots in earlier research. One immediately recalls the remarkable publication of the Pecos human remains from the American Southwest in 1930 by Earnest Hooton of Harvard University. More recently, one thinks of the publications of J. Lawrence Angel, a student of Hooton, on past Greek societies in which biological change was discussed in the context of historical and cultural change. These and other scholarly works provide a clear direction leading to today’s emphasis regarding the impact of changing culture on human biology. There are few topics more salient than the complex relationship between biology and culture. Clearly a book that integrates the perspectives of history, cultural dynamics, and archaeology in the development of bioarchaeology is an important milestone. The inclusion of chapters, by many of today’s leading practitioners of bioarchaeology, that highlight the knowledge and insight regarding the application of bioarchaeology to contemporary research in both archaeology and biological anthropology provides an important source in the development of this framework. Such a book is, if anything, overdue. All scientists and scholars who use or plan to use the interpretative framework of bioarchaeology to inform their understanding of the data they collect are indebted to Drs. Buikstra and Beck for investing the time xvto assemble a collection of chapters that provides an accessible, authoritative, and convenient source of information that will permit all of us to make further progress in understanding the synchronic and diachronic dynamics of culture and biology.
Donald J. Ortnerxvi