Bioarchaeologists who study human remains in ancient, historic and
contemporary settings are securely anchored within anthropology as
anthropologists, yet they have not taken on the pundits the way other
subdisciplines within anthropology have. Popular science authors
frequently and selectively use bioarchaeological data on demography,
disease, violence, migration and diet to buttress their poorly formed
arguments about general trends in human behavior and health, beginning
with our earliest ancestors. While bioarchaeologists are experts on
these subjects, bioarchaeology and bioarchaeological approaches have
largely remained invisible to the public eye.
Current issues such as climate change, droughts, warfare, violence,
famine, and the effects of disease are media mainstays and are subjects
familiar to bioarchaeologists, many of whom have empirical data and
informed viewpoints, both for topical exploration and also for
predictions based on human behavior in deep time.
The contributions in this volume will explore the how and where the data
has been misused, present new ways of using evidence in the service of
making new discoveries, and demonstrate ways that our long term
interdisciplinarity lends itself to transdisciplinary wisdom. We also
consider possible reasons for bioarchaeological invisibility and offer
advice concerning the absolute necessity of bioarchaeologists speaking
out through social media.
