The second edition of The Biomarker Guide is a fully updated and expanded version of this essential reference. Now in two volumes, it provides a comprehensive account of the role that biomarker technology plays both in petroleum exploration and in understanding Earth history and processes. Biomarkers and Isotopes in the Environment and Human History details the origins of biomarkers and introduces basic chemical principles relevant to their study. It discusses analytical techniques, and applications of biomarkers to environmental and archaeological problems. The Biomarker Guide is an invaluable resource for geologists, petroleum geochemists, biogeochemists, environmental scientists and archaeologists.

The Biomarker Guide

Porosities in the outer table of the cranial vault (porotic hyperostosis) and orbital roof (cribra orbitalia) are among the most frequent pathological lesions seen in ancient human skeletal collections. Since the 1950s, chronic iron-deficiency anemia has been widely accepted as the probable cause of both conditions. Based on this proposed etiology, bioarchaeologists use the prevalence of these conditions to infer living conditions conducive to dietary iron deficiency, iron malabsorption, and iron loss from both diarrheal disease and intestinal parasites in earlier human populations. This iron-deficiency-anemia hypothesis is inconsistent with recent hematological research that shows iron deficiency per se cannot sustain the massive red blood cell production that causes the marrow expansion responsible for these lesions. Several lines of evidence suggest that the accelerated loss and compensatory over-production of red blood cells seen in hemolytic and megaloblastic anemias is the most likely proximate cause of porotic hyperostosis. Although cranial vault and orbital roof porosities are sometimes conflated under the term porotic hyperostosis, paleopathological and clinical evidence suggests they often have different etiologies. Reconsidering the etiology of these skeletal conditions has important implications for current interpretations of malnutrition and infectious disease in earlier human populations.

The causes of porotic hyperostosis and cribra orbitalia: a reappraisal of the iron-deficiency-anemia hypothesis.

▪ Abstract Traumatic injuries in ancient human skeletal remains are a direct source of evidence for testing theories of warfare and violence that are not subject to the interpretative difficulties posed by literary creations such as historical records and ethnographic reports. Bioarchaeological research shows that throughout the history of our species, interpersonal violence, especially among men, has been prevalent. Cannibalism seems to have been widespread, and mass killings, homicides, and assault injuries are also well documented in both the Old and New Worlds. No form of social organization, mode of production, or environmental setting appears to have remained free from interpersonal violence for long.

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A bioarchaeological perspective on the history of violence

Kuru is an acquired prion disease largely restricted to the Fore linguistic group of the Papua New Guinea Highlands, which was transmitted during endocannibalistic feasts. Heterozygosity for a common polymorphism in the human prion protein gene (PRNP) confers relative resistance to prion diseases. Elderly survivors of the kuru epidemic, who had multiple exposures at mortuary feasts, are, in marked contrast to younger unexposed Fore, predominantly PRNP 129 heterozygotes. Kuru imposed strong balancing selection on the Fore, essentially eliminating PRNP 129 homozygotes. Worldwide PRNP haplotype diversity and coding allele frequencies suggest that strong balancing selection at this locus occurred during the evolution of modern humans.

/pdf/balancing-selection-at-the-prion-protein-gene-consistent-2eumwingki.pdf

Balancing selection at the prion protein gene consistent with prehistoric kurulike epidemics.

Skeletons represent the most direct evidence of the biology of past populations, and their study provides insight into health and well-being, dietary history, lifestyle (activity), violence and trauma, ancestry, and demography. These areas help inform our understanding of a range of issues, such as the causes and consequences of adaptive shifts in the past (e.g., foraging to farming, sedentarism), the biological impact of invasion and colonization, differential access to food and other resources (e.g., by gender or status), and conflict and warfare. Central to bioarchaeological inquiry are the interaction between biology and behavior and the role of environment on health and lifestyle. Bioarchaeological analysis has traditionally focused on local settings. However, important perspective on general questions of human adaptation is possible both regionally and globally.

/pdf/bioarchaeology-the-lives-and-lifestyles-of-past-people-4exxfng284.pdf

Bioarchaeology: The Lives and Lifestyles of Past People

The existence of cannibalism has emerged as one of the most controversial issues in the archaeology of the American Southwest. In this paper, we examine this issue by presenting the results of our investigation at 5MT10010, a small early Pueblo III habitation site in southwestern Colorado. Battered, broken bones from seven individuals were discovered in two adjacent pithouses at 5MT10010. Mixed and incomplete remains of four adults and an adolescent were recovered from the floor and ventilator shaft of one pithouse; the remains of two subadults were found on the floor and in various subfeatures of the second. Cut marks and percussion scars implicate humans in the disarticulation and reduction of these bodies. Evidence of heat exposure on some bone fragments and laboratory analyses of a human coprolite recovered from one of the pithouses support the interpretation that people prepared and consumed human body parts. The discovery of disarticulated human remains at 5MT10010 is one of a number of similar finds in the northern Southwest. Analysis of cases from the Mesa Verde region indicates a sharp increase in cannibalism around A.D. 1150, a time of drought and the collapse of the Chaco system. The causes, consequences, and nature of this apparent outbreak of cannibalism are examined in light of 5MT10010 and other recent finds.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2694812.pdf

Cannibalism, warfare, and drought in the Mesa Verde Region during the twelfth century A.D.

The existence of cannibalism is one of the most controversial issues in the archaeology of the American Southwest. Disarticulated, cut-marked and heat-altered human remains from non-burial contexts at prehistoric Puebloan (Anasazi) archaeological sites in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest have been interpreted by some scholars as evidence of cannibalism. Osteological studies indicate that many of the disarticulated bodies found at these sites were processed in a manner consistent with food preparation. Opponents of this interpretation point out that non-cannibalistic practices such as secondary interment, corpse mutilation and ritualized witch executions might account for the assemblages. Osteological evidence alone does not document the actual ingestion of human flesh. Here we show consumption of human flesh did occur as demonstrated in preserved human waste containing identifiable human tissue remains from a site with osteological evidence of cannibalism.

Biochemical evidence of cannibalism at a prehistoric Puebloan site in southwestern Colorado

The original authors of Billman et al. (2000) are joined by three other analysts from the Cowboy Wash research team to respond to the critique of this article by Dongoske et al (2000). Dongoske and his coauthors state that Billman et al. (2000) failed to test alternative hypotheses or to consider alternative explanations for the findings at 5MT10010 and similar sites. The original authors point out that alternative hypotheses were examined and rejected, leaving a violent episode of cannibalism as the most plausible explanation for the remains found at 5MT10010. Dongoske et al. also question many aspects of the osteological, archaeological, coprolite, and biochemical analyses that were presented in the 5MT10010 study. Our response addresses issues of data collection, procedure, and interpretation, and attempts to clarify some points that were not fully developed in the original text due to length restrictions.

/pdf/response-to-critique-of-the-claim-of-cannibalism-at-cowboy-3j35o4gj5u.pdf

Response to critique of the claim of cannibalism at cowboy wash

Many scholars interpret assemblages of disarticulated human remains from Anasazi sites as evidence of cannibalism. Other scholars argue that variation in the condition of these assemblages implies that many, if not all, resulted from non-cannibalistic practices. This paper evaluates four well-documented cases of mutilated human bones from a dispersed community on the southern piedmont of Ute Mountain, Colorado. Evidence indicates that all four sites were suddenly abandoned around ad 1150, after events responsible for corpse mutilation took place. Still, variations in processing methods were observed between the sites and between two sets of remains at one site. The authors suggest that these, and similar assemblages in the Mesa Verde region, resulted from violent raiding involving cannibalism, and that minor processing variations are consistent with the expediency inherent in such attacks. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Explaining variability in mutilated human bone assemblages from the American Southwest: a case study from the southern piedmont of Sleeping Ute Mountain, Colorado

Banks L. Leonard

Papers

Cannibalism, warfare, and drought in the Mesa Verde Region during the twelfth century A.D.

Biochemical evidence of cannibalism at a prehistoric Puebloan site in southwestern Colorado

Response to critique of the claim of cannibalism at cowboy wash

Explaining variability in mutilated human bone assemblages from the American Southwest: a case study from the southern piedmont of Sleeping Ute Mountain, Colorado