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Beyond the Nasca Lines examines the origin, rise, fall, and reformation of complex societies through investigations conducted at the archaeological site of La Tiza in the desert of Nasca, Peru. La Tiza was inhabited for over 5000 years and has the longest occupation of any settlement in the region, providing an unprecedented opportunity to examine the dynamics of ancient complex societies. Although the region is famous for the Nasca Lines (ground drawing on the desert floor) that were created by the Nasca culture (A.D. 100–650), many societies thrived in the region before and after that period. From hunters and gatherers of the Middle Preceramic (ca. 3500 B.C.) to the Inca empire (ca. A.D. 1450), the transformation of society is documented with a particular focus on the cycle of the rise of the Nasca culture, subsequent conquest by the Wari state followed by collapse and abandonment, and then the establishment of a new society in the Late Intermediate Period (ca. A.D. 1200). Many factors were involved in these shifts, and included the organization of kinship groups, shifts in subsistence strategies, influxes of immigrants and new ideas, religious movements, climate change, trade and social networks, and external imperial policies. This book is unique from previous studies in Nasca in that it takes a diachronic perspective and addresses the long prehistory of the region from the perspective of a particular site.

The volume presents a broad array of bioarchaeological techniques that can illuminate the lives of individuals in the eastern Mediterranean and Near East and the promise of bioarchaeological research in this region. The authors present their results in a contextualized manner, considering a region's unique geographic, cultural, and historical situation throughout antiquity. The book's organization around specific research topics (mortuary practices and society, population movement and migration, health, disease, and diet), rather than specific methods, emphasizes the problem-oriented nature of these projects. This arrangement makes the book more accessible to archaeologists and historians wishing to familiarize themselves with bioarchaeology's potential, in addition to introducing bioarchaeologists working in other regions to the growing body of research in the Near East.

During the second millennium B.C. hundreds of villages were founded in peninsular India. The people of the Deccan Chalcolithic period relied on farming drought-resistant barley and wheat. They raised cattle, sheep, and goats; maintained hunting and foraging traditions; and utilized the resources gathered from local lakes and forest habitats for subsistence, construction, and fuel. Throughout this time, Chalcolithic people successfully colonized the peninsula despite the challenges of living in a semi-arid climate and unpredictable monsoon rainfall. By 1400 B.C. their settlements were thriving, populations were growing, and large regional centers were established. Yet, around 1000 B.C., the majority of these settlements were deserted. This book uses evidence from paleoclimate research, archaeology, and human skeletal material to examine life and death at three villages occupied during this time. Innovative methods of bioarchaeological analysis reveal complexity in the interactions between humans and their environment and suggest a new model for understanding this period of India's prehistory. Questions about human interactions with the environment thousands of years ago in India are interesting from an academic standpoint, but the insights we gain into the past are relevant in a contemporary context as we face the consequences of continued population growth, unsustainable lifestyles, degradation of local environments, and large-scale climate change. Having a longer view of the challenges, strategies, and consequences of human–environment interactions may prove helpful as we all develop strategies for dealing with contemporary environmental change.

This book represents an important shift in the interpretation of skeletal remains in the Americas. Until recently, bioarchaeology has focused on interpreting and analyzing populations. The chapters here examine how individuals fit into those larger populations. The overall aim is to demonstrate how bioarchaeologists can uniquely contribute to our understanding of the formation, representation, and repercussions of identity. The book combines historical and archaeological data with population-genetic analyses, biogeochemical analyses of human tooth enamel and bones, mortuary patterns, and body modifications. Case studies drawn from North, Central, and South American mortuary remains from AD 500 to the Colonial period examine a wide range of factors that make up identity, including ethnicity, age, gender, and social, political, and religious constructions. By adding a valuable biological element to the study of culture—a topic traditionally associated with social theorists, ethnographers, and historical archaeologies—the book aims to highlight the importance of skeletal evidence in helping us better understand our past.

Examined through the lens of human remains, the overarching theme of this volume is human interaction and its consequences for the human condition across the vast expanse of East Asia during the Holocene. The volume is also an exploration of human interaction at an entirely different level, bringing together chapters written by scholars from several distinct academic schools of thought. The contributors stem from a range of culturally mediated scholarly traditions in biological anthropology that were isolated to varying degrees by the tumultuous politics of the 20th century. Conceptual frameworks, underlying assumptions, goals, and even styles of presentation vary considerably among the chapters, reflecting our goal of creating a forum within which a highly diverse and international group of scholars could engage in their particular approaches to examining human skeletal remains drawn from archaeological contexts.

This book is a compilation of osteobiographies: life histories of individuals whose remains were recovered from archaeological sites all over the world. The essays include contributions by some forty individuals and provide richly textured accounts of life in the past and of the process of bioarchaeological inquiry. Skeletal and dental analysis is augmented by information from oral history and legends, sagas, ethnography and ethnohistory, ancient DNA, bone chemistry, and the abundance of the archaeological record-all carefully woven into interpretations of the lives of artisans, healers, craftsmen, and farmers. Amply illustrated, the chapters present research results in a manner accessible to students and non-professionals, without glossing over the scientific aspects of the methods or oversimplifying the problems and limitations inherent in the research. The range of research methods and trajectories presented in these chapters exemplifies the creative, interdisciplinary nature of bioarchaeology and the unique contribution of this field to our understanding of the breadth of human experience.

Featuring a wealth of case studies on human skulls recovered from ethnographic and archaeological contexts around the world, this book focuses on the question of whose skulls and heads were collected and modified and why, whether as ancestors or enemies, as insiders or outsiders, as males, females or children. This volume includes discussions of osteological examinations, visual descriptions, iconography, taphonomy, and DNA, x-ray and isotope analyses to determine, for example, whether the skulls belonged to ancestors or enemies, as local or non-local residents. Emphasizing social identity and the use of the body in ritual, this book includes varied approaches to heads and skulls as both biological objects and as material culture. Bioarchaeological discussions of these skulls shed light on questions of identity as well as on cultural, economic, and political practices within past societies. Whether decorated, disembodied, or deformed, collected for display or hidden, or otherwise modified or curated, skulls, and their study serve to illustrate the potential of the abundance of information that can be obtained from a combined analysis of this notable part of the human body.

Bioarchaeology provides a body of theory, method, and data to investigate the origins and evolution of social violence in human groups going back in time for thousands of years. Case studies from different time periods and different cultures demonstrate the commonalities and differences among human groups with respect to the ways that culturally sanctioned violence is used. These richly detailed studies provide ways to examine the relationship between violence and lived experience, and between lived experience and cultural processes. The chapter authors use a variety of theoretical approaches to explain the human behaviors that maintain and perpetuate violent encounters within groups, as well as between groups. It is important to document long chronologies of human behavior because it becomes clearer how change can bring on violent responses (changes such as droughts, population pressure, resource acquisition, or status). These kinds of studies can be used to better understand how to prevent or eradicate violence in human groups today. This volume compels readers to view culturally sanctioned violence not as a necessary evil or an abhorrent behavior but as a way that human groups solve problems that they perceive they have. Ritual violence as part of ceremonies to bring people together, or male coalitions that go out and raid other groups for women and resources are examples where violence aids in solving problems within the culture. Anthropological perspectives on violence using bioarchaeological data from the past are a unique and valuable resource for those wishing to understand violence in all of its manifestations.

The study of ancient architecture and the built environment has much to tell us about the social makeup and culture of the designers, builders, and users of these constructions. This volume presents the most current research on domestic, public, and ritual architecture created over four millennia along the Ohio River, its tributaries, and in the lower Great Lakes. Most of these chapters describe new discoveries and previously unpublished data. This compilation begins with the latest information on some of the most ancient (Late Archaic) dwellings in the region which demonstrate that early cultures built sophisticated dwellings and were much more settled than previously thought. Of particular note are the chapters which provide the first published descriptions of newly discovered Hopewell domestic and ritual constructions in the central Ohio River Valley, such as the Moorehead Circle and the Brown’s Bottom domestic hamlet. Rare evidence of post-Hopewell architecture in Ohio is derived from the recent discovery of a complete early Late Woodland domestic structure at the Heckelman site in northern Ohio. The climax of domestic architecture in the region is thoroughly investigated by three analyses of Late Prehistoric period house constructions and public architecture in the central Ohio Valley and central Indiana. The volume concludes with a discussion of how archaeologists working in the region can improve our understanding of prehistoric constructions through the development of a new interpretive framework based on basic architectural principals and nomenclature.