Bioarchaeology of Native Americans in the Spanish Borderlands Most researchers of the European settlement of North America assume that Native American populations were decimated solely and uniformly by introduced disease. These authors challenge that assumption, demonstrating that Native American societies responded to European encroachment in complex and varied ways. They draw on data from population case studies in what is now the southern United States to establish convincingly that archaeological and bioanthropological research are powerful tools for cultural interpretation. Contents: 1. Assessing the Impact of European Contact on Aboriginal Populations, by Brenda J. Baker and Lisa KealhoferPart One. Bioarchaeological Investigations 2. Protohistoric Aborigines in West-Central Alabama: Probable Correlations to Early European Contact, by M. Cassandra Hill 3. Sociopolitical Devolution in Northeast Mississippi and the Timing of the de Soto Entrada, by Jay K. Johnson and Geoffrey R. Lehmann 4. The evidence for Demographic Collapse in California, by Lisa Kealhofer Part Two. Skeletal Biology and Paleoepidemiology 5. Implications of Changing Biomechanical and Nutritional Environments for Activity and Lifeway in the Eastern Spanish Borderlands, by Clark Spencer Larsen, Christopher B. Ruff, and Mark C. Griffin 6. The Effect of European Contact on the Health of Indigenous Populations in Texas, by Elizabeth Miller 7. Paleoepidemiology of Eastern and Western Pueblo Communities in Protohistoric and Early Historic New Mexico, by Ann L. W. Stodder Part Three. Theoretical Perspectives and Prospects 8. Historic Depopulation in the American Southwest: Issues of Interpretation and Context-Embedded Analyses, by Ann M. Palkovich 9. Prospects and Problems in Contact-Era Research,by George R. Milner 10. Counterpoint to Collapse: Depopulation and Adaptation, by Lisa Kealhofer and Brenda J. Baker Brenda J. Baker is
senior scientist in bioarchaeology and curator of human osteology
at the New York State Museum in Albany.
1996. 272 pp. 6 X 9.
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"An
important addition to the growing literature on American
Indian-European contact in North America, offering fresh
perspectives on the variability of native societies' responses to
contact."--Jerald T. Milanich, Florida Museum of Natural History "The only recent volume that explicitly concentrates on biocultural contact effects based on bioarchaeology, paleopathology, and ethnohistory . . . and [the only one] to stress so strongly that more than disease effects were involved in the depopulation of Native Americans."--Rebecca Storey, University of Houston
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