Richardson gives a very fair account. The literature is cited comprehensively and this book is an indexed source of references. I found little that I would dispute in fact or interpretation. But another criticism of his and Hurt's method of searching and reading the literature is that it finds the footsteps in the sand pointing our way, while in truth, at the time the source papers were written, the \"way ahead\" was not evident. Footprints in the trampled ground of trial and error lead to all points of the compass. It reaches faintly ludicrous proportions in the fable of the third-century Saints Cosmas and Damian and the swapping of white and black men's legs. This has become an obligatory opener to many review articles and theses on organ transplantation, as if it has any real bearing on the history of science or the ideas of Vladimir Petrovitch Demikhov, Alexis Carell, Willem Kolff, Peter Medawar, Norman Shumway, and Christiaan Barnard. Richardson faced the difficulty of including events occurring right up to the time of going to press. I recognized the difficulty of describing current practice as \"history\" when I was commissioned to write the chapter on cardiac surgery for the book British cardiology in the twentienth century (London, 2000). For instance Richardson records the cardiac transplants of 1967 and 1968 in the first edition of 1969. This latter part of the book is more journalism than historiography but it is here that it came to life for me. For remote events outside his immediate knowledge and experience Richardson does no better than provide a very well ordered and well referenced description of what surgeons did and how the practice he saw in the 1960s was built up. The 1950s and 1960s he describes with the immediacy of a man who was there and knew the debates. He did not know that there was to be a moratorium on transplantation for about ten years and then that it would become part of established practice, so his story is fresh and vivid, untrammelled by a knowledge of subsequent events, interpretation of which sometimes interferes with his accounts of more remote history where he sees the need to explain \"why they got it wrong\". In summary, this is a well indexed and well referenced overview of the perceived landmarks in heart surgery, with good explanations of the medical terms and implications, which will be a useful resource for anyone interested in this area.

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Dying in the city of the blues: sickle cell anemia and the politics of race and health.

Black Feminist Archaeology

Part One: Context is Everything Part Two: Since Time Immemorial? Conflict in Prehistory Part Three: Hierarchies and Violence Part Four: New World Orders: Conflict in the Americas Part Five: Plus ca Change? Modern World Emergence

The Routledge Handbook of the Bioarchaeology of Human Conflict

The effects of Egyptian imperial expansion into Nubia during the New Kingdom Period (1,550–1,069 BC) have been debated. Here, the impacts of the Egyptian Empire are investigated through an examination of osteological indicators of activity at the archaeological site of Tombos. Entheseal changes to fibrocartilaginous attachment sites and osteoarthritis are examined to infer what types of physical activities this colonial town was engaging in. Many of the skeletal remains at Tombos were comingled due to looting in antiquity; undisturbed burials are presented as a subsample of the population (n = 28) in which age, sex, and body size can be considered. The total sample (n = 85) is then analyzed to better understand overall levels of activity. A number of Nile River Valley bioarchaeological samples are used as points of comparison to the Tombos population. Results indicate that the inhabitants of Tombos had relatively low entheseal remodeling scores; this is highlighted when Tombos is juxtaposed with comparative samples, particularly in men. Furthermore, osteoarthritis, as assessed by eburnation, was also markedly infrequent at Tombos. Collectively, these results indicate a relatively low level of activity and support the hypothesis that Tombos may have served as an administrative center. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Activity patterns in New Kingdom Nubia: An examination of entheseal remodeling and osteoarthritis at Tombos

Racism is defined as a modern system of inequity emergent in Atlantic slavery in which “Whiteness” is born and embedded. This essay describes its transformation. The operation of racist Whiteness i...

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/710357

Archaeology under the Blinding Light of Race

This paper examines health differences between two distinct samples within an African American skeletal population by investigating variation in osteoarthritis (OA) patterns, the presence of enthesopathies, fractures and cause of death. Surveys and statistical treatments tested the hypothesis that two samples within a population that have different socioeconomic contexts will present associated differences in health.Binomial statistics were used to examine differences in OA patterns and prevalence within and between groups, and according to age and sex. These data were paired with information on the presence of enthesopathies at select muscle attachment and insertion sites to add another dimension to the assessment of mechanical strain. Finally causes of death, when available, were recorded to compare leading causes within and between samples, as well as with the larger population.Data reveal significant differences in the prevalence of OA between groups. Significant differences also presented when comparing the prevalence of unilateral and bilateral affect. Although a number of differences in health status observed can be attributed to age, relationships between the presence of OA and enthesopathies in a portion of the sample indicates that degenerative change and hypertrophy in the samples reflect both systemic and non-systemic change. The presence and pattern of fractures and causes of death are also suggestive of differences in social context between the two samples. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Language: en

Variation in health and socioeconomic status within the W. Montague Cobb skeletal collection: Degenerative joint disease, trauma and cause of death

The W. Montague Cobb skeletal collection, mainly comprised of African Americans living in Washington, DC, before 1969, is an important collection for human biological studies of the African Diaspora. This article outlines the process of constructing an improved study sample for biocultural analysis by merging skeletal remains from the collection with their associated texts. The merging allows for the inclusion of individuals from the original series for whom we no longer have skeletons. We argue that this step is necessary to construct a data set that reflects the demographic breadth (age, ethnicity, social class) of the original collection, taking into account a substantial number of skeletons lost during storage and disuse. The mechanics of this process were informed by a critical and humanistic orientation toward human biological study built upon the following premises: (1) scientific investigation is not an objective or passive practice, nor must it be; and, (2) relevant, publically accessible human biological research requires competence with social justice issues, as well as previous and current scholarship focused on addressing those issues. This approach to sample construction engages skeletal remains as biological and social products, and enhances the social and translational implications of our research practices.

Repositioning the Cobb human archive: The merger of a skeletal collection and its texts

W. Montague Cobb became the first African American to receive a doctorate in physical anthropology in the United States (1932). He was also among the first U.S. physical anthropologists to demonstrate a commitment to biocultural integration and racial equality in his research. Nonetheless, very few European American physical anthropologists responded to or utilized Cobb's work. This continued after bioanthropology took on a more biocultural focus in the 1980s, some 50 years after Cobb's first studies of this kind. In this essay, I highlight Cobb's research and writing from the first decades of his career to illustrate his contribution to developing biocultural perspectives in physical anthropology. As a result, I hope to move Cobb from the margins to the center of discussions about methodological and theoretical developments in bioanthropology over the past 30 years.

Knowledge from the Margins: W. Montague Cobb's Pioneering Research in Biocultural Anthropology

espanolEn este articulo se analiza el trabajo intelectual y politico basado en el Laboratorio de Investigacion Cobb de la Universidad de Howard en relacion con ideas nuevas y emergentes en bioarqueologia. Para este proposito, se enfatizan aspectos de la investigacion centrada en las colecciones de cementerios africanos de W. Montague Cobb y Nueva York. El analisis incluye el periodo durante el cual ambas colecciones se amenazaban en el laboratorio al mismo tiempo (1992–2003). Sostengo que la medida en que este trabajo se considera relevante para los desarrollos academicos en bioarqueologia se basa en la forma en que se considera el trabajo academico producido por personas de color en general. A menudo se considera "demasiado especifico" en el enfoque para ser generalmente relevante para las discusiones disciplinarias. Sin embargo, el examen de las formas en que la disciplina y los investigadores estan socialmente integrados revela que esto es un producto del pensamiento racializado que considera el trabajo academico blanco universalmente aplicable a la investigacion intelectual, mientras que el trabajo academico de los no blancos no lo es. La teoria feminista negra y las criticas a la ciencia se utilizan para demostrar que los analisis de la desigualdad centrados en la raza son necesarios para identificar y deconstruir las desigualdades estructurales inherentes en la disciplina. El concepto de Gina Athena Ulysse de una perspectiva nativa alternativa/modificada se utiliza para ilustrar como esta literatura proporciona un lenguaje para nombrar las subjetividades complejas de los investigadores que estudian y experimentan la desigualdad estructural. EnglishThis article analyzes intellectual and political work based in Howard University’s Cobb Research Laboratory relative to “new” and “emerging” ideas in bioarchaeology. Research conducted on remains from the Cobb Skeletal Collection and New York African Burial Ground is highlighted for this purpose. The analysis includes the period during which both collections were housed in the laboratory at the same time (1992–2003). I argue that the extent to which this work is considered relevant to scholarly developments in bioarchaeology is informed by the ways scholarship produced by people of color is regarded in general. It is often deemed “too specific” in focus to be generally relevant to disciplinary discussions. However, examination of the ways the discipline and researchers are socially embedded reveals this to be a product of racialized thinking that deems White scholarship universally applicable to intellectual inquiry—whereas the scholarship of non-Whites is not. Black-feminist theory and critiques of science are used to demonstrate that analyses of inequality centering on race are necessary for identifying and deconstructing the structural inequalities inherent in the discipline. Gina Athena Ulysse’s concept of an alter(ed)native perspective is used to illustrate how this literature provides language to name the complex subjectivities of researchers who both study and experience structural inequality. francaisCet article est une analyse des travaux intellectuels et politiques effectues dans le Laboratoire de recherche Cobb de la Howard University, et traitant des idees nouvelles et emergentes en matiere de bioarcheologie. Certains aspects de la recherche s'interessant notamment aux collections de W. Montague Cobb et du Cimetiere africain de New York sont mis en exergue a cette fin. L'analyse comprend la periode durant laquelle les deux collections ont ete accueillies dans le laboratoire a la meme epoque (1992–2003). Je postule que la mesure suivant laquelle ces travaux sont juges pertinents au regard des developpements de recherche en bioarcheologie est influencee par les manieres dont le savoir produit par les personnes de couleur est considere de maniere generale. Il est souvent juge « trop specifique » quant a son theme central pour etre plus generalement pertinent aux discussions disciplinaires. Cependant, l'etude des manieres dont la discipline et les chercheurs sont socialement integres met en lumiere le fait que ceci est le produit d'une pensee racialisee qui estime que le savoir blanc est universellement applicable a la recherche intellectuelle—alors que le savoir des non-blancs ne l'est pas. La theorie feministe noire et les critiques de la science sont utilisees pour demontrer que les analyses de l'inegalite centrees sur la race sont necessaires afin d'identifier et de deconstruire les inegalites structurelles inherentes a la discipline. Le concept de Gina Athena Ulysse d'une perspective alter(ee)native est utilisee pour illustrer comment la litterature fournit un langage pour nommer les subjectivites complexes des chercheurs qui etudient et font l'experience de l'inegalite structurelle.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s41636-019-00224-5.pdf

An Alter(ed)native Perspective on Historical Bioarchaeology

This paper examines the scientific construction of racial differences through the lens of early twentieth-century bioanthropological studies of American Negro skeletal and living population samples. These studies, as well as the scientists who conducted them, are generally distinguished from one another based on their adherence to quantitative and/or qualitative measures of racial difference. However, these binary distinctions tend to obscure the rather complex processes of racial formation in which scientists and research subjects were engaged. Both racialist and nonracialist scholarship positioned American Negroes as products of white, African, and, sometimes, Indian admixture. As the singular label used in these studies connotes, “the American Negro” was also classified as a distinct racial type based on elements of skeletal and physical morphology. Studies reveal that multiple definitions and meanings of race were operating and being generated in the process of situating American Negroes in these seem...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/662416

Rachel Watkins

Papers

Variation in health and socioeconomic status within the W. Montague Cobb skeletal collection: Degenerative joint disease, trauma and cause of death

Repositioning the Cobb human archive: The merger of a skeletal collection and its texts

Knowledge from the Margins: W. Montague Cobb's Pioneering Research in Biocultural Anthropology

An Alter(ed)native Perspective on Historical Bioarchaeology

Biohistorical Narratives of Racial Difference in the American Negro