Bioarchaeology of Marginalized People

Bioarchaeology of Marginalized People amplifies the echoes of voices of previously marginalized or powerless individuals. Archaeological investigations have generally taken a top-down approach to exploring the past, trying to reconstruct individual lives through datasets concerning populations. Following previous work done by physical anthropologists on the biology of poverty, this volume will focus on the voices of past actors who would normally be subsumed within a cohort or whose stories represented the minority, rather than the majority. By focusing on previously excluded voices this volume will enrich our understanding of the lived experience of individuals in the past.

Contributors to this volume will highlight the histories and stories of individuals who did not record their own stories, investigate two disparate ancient Egyptian women and discuss five individuals (including an infant) recovered from a high status indigenous cemetery in British Columbia. Additional chapters examine the marginalized individuals whose bodies comprise the Terry and Hamann-Todd collections and investigate inequalities in health status of individuals in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Modern clinical population health is researched through a historical lens, bringing a new perspective to the critical public health interventions occurring today. Finally, the editors will weave together themes identified in the chapters, including loss of identity, marginalization of the stigmatized, and the biology of poverty, with a look to future bioarchaeological and anthropological investigations of these topics.

• Highlights the histories and stories of individuals whose voices were silenced, such as workhouse inmates, migrants, those of low socioeconomic status, the chronically ill, and those living in communities without a written language
• Provides a holistic and more complete understanding of the lived experiences of the past, as well as changes in populations through time
• Offers an interdisciplinary discussion with contributions from a wide variety of international authors

Biological Anthropologists, Palaeopathologists, Historical Archaeologists, Palaeoepidemiologists, Historians, Museum Curators and Social Epidemiologists. Graduate Level and Upper-Level Undergraduate Level students in Bioarcheology and Archaeology

1. Introduction
2. Mummies, memories and marginalization: the changing social roles of a mummy from ancient to modern times
3. Task Activity and Tooth Wear in a Woman of Ancient Egypt
4. Looking into the Eyes of the Ancient Chiefs of Shíshálh: The osteology and facial reconstructions of a 4000-year-old high status family
5. "Officially absent but actually present": bioarchaeological evidence for population diversity in London during the Black Death, AD 1348-50
6. Marginalized by Choice – Kayenta Pueblo Communities in the Southwest (AD 800-1500)
7. Marginalized Bodies and the Construction of American Anatomical Collections
8. Health inequity and spatial divides: infant mortality during Hamilton, Ontario’s industrial transition, 1880-1912
9. In the Shadow of War: The Forgotten 1916 Polio Epidemic in New Zealand
10. Exploring the Effects of Structural Inequality in an Individual from Nineteenth-Century Chicago
11. Down and out in Post Medieval London: Changes in Welfare Ideology and the Impact on the Health of Workhouse Inmates
12. Innovation in population health intervention research: a historical perspective
13. Mapping Marginalized Pasts