SOCIAL BIOARCHAEOLOGY. Edited by Sabrina C. Agarwaland Bonnie A. Glencross. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. 2011. 472 pp. ISBN 978-1-4051-9187-6.$43.95 (paper).

Social Bioarchaeology presents a series of discussionsand reviews of both fundamental and advanced concepts inthe field, often with case examples to illustrate points. Inaddition, each chapter directly addresses issues related tothe incorporation of social theory into the conceptualizationand treatment of biological data. Agarwal and Glencross’sintroduction contextualizes the volume within the historyof the field, identifying several important influences on theorganization and contents of the volume. These include “thecritical examination of the nature of archaeological skeletalsamples themselves” (p. 2), “emphasis on a deeper under-standing of past life ways gained through the close andsimultaneous consideration of archaeological, historical,and ethnographic sources of data along with skeletal analy-sis” and “ethical considerations and the roles of multiplestakeholders in bioarchaeological research” (p. 3). The chap-ters are organized into three general sections that address1) the nature of skeletal samples, 2) aspects of social iden-tity, and 3) approaches to investigating the life course ofindividuals. Each section focuses on broad topics that havereceived increased attention in recent years, and all includepapers from authors representing a wide variety of special-ties within bioarchaeology and archaeology.

The first section begins with a chapter by Zuckerman andArmelagos, who present a historical contextualization of thebiosocial synthesis, currently used in bioarchaeology, andspecifically draw attention to different perspectives in thecurrent debate within anthropology related to the utility andethics of using a holistic approach. This chapter is in someways another introduction, framing the importance of thetheoretical focus taken by most of the chapters to addressingthis debate. Following that, Turner and Andrushko discussthe myriad issues and problems related to the ethics and poli-tics of conducting bioarchaeological research in differentcountries (focusing specifically on Peru). Weiss-Krejci andJackes each explore aspects of sampling bias, showing itsvarious effects on analysis and interpretation. Focusing onTikal, Weiss-Krejci demonstrates that analyses typicallyignore the wide variety of contexts in which human bone isfound at the site, focusing instead only on primary burials.She rightly argues that this practice ignores a large segmentof the ancient population and misses important stages ofancient mortuary programs. The discussion by Jackes effec-tively uses a series of historical and archaeological caseexamples to illustrate the many biases that are inherent inskeletal samples and that creep in during analysis, and howthese ultimately affect interpretations.

The second section comprises four studies focusing on theconcept of identity. Hollimon reviews recent theoretical andmethodological approaches used by bioarchaeologists toexplore the biological and cultural construction of sex andgender. Zakrzewski discusses how biological distance andfunerary data can be used together to explore the concept ofethnicity, focusing specifically on medieval Islamicmigrants to Iberia. Barrett and Blakey document a widevariety of pathological indicators among enslaved Africansin 18th century New York, and demonstrate the importanceof cultural context to building a model of the stress-relatedexperiences over the life course. Roberts’ study of leprosyand tuberculosis utilizes clinical data from modern groupsto demonstrate how cultural perceptions of illness impact

the life experience of infected individuals, often creating aseries of physical and emotional stresses that extend farbeyond the basic symptoms of the disease. She extends thismodel of how disease processes can influence aspects ofidentity to interpret the social implications of disease inLate Medieval England.

The third section also focuses heavily on identity, althoughspecifically as related to aging. Sofaer compares concepts ofage from different disciplines to demonstrate that age is asmuch of a social construction as a biological one. Agarwaland Beauchesne review the processes by which a variety ofgenetic and environmental influences affect bone formationand remodeling; these relationships can be utilized to deci-pher cultural influences on life histories. The chapters byHalcrow and Tayles and by Littleton demonstrate the inter-sections of social and biological processes that help shapeand define cultural concepts of childhood. Halcrow andTayles review methodologies that relate to aspects of child-ren’s life experiences, which can reveal culturally (ratherthan temporally) defined age categories. Littleton’s casestudy from Bahrain explores the concept of “local biology,”which contextualizes specific patterns of health by consider-ing a wide array of local cultural and environmental influen-ces. Glencross uses a case example from Indian Knoll to dem-onstrate how “life course” can be used (in this case, with thecumulative record of traumatic injury in skeletons) to explorevariability within and between social groups based on age,sex, and social status. Prowse’s analysis of a Roman periodsample also uses the life course perspective by combining iso-topic and dental pathology data to demonstrate how varia-tions in diet can be used to distinguish different sociallymeaningful identities related to sex and age.

When considering the importance of this volume to thefield, it is particularly noteworthy the way in which theauthors problematize several key topics, such as represen-tativeness of skeletal samples, age and sex, and health, aswell as discuss various issues that address the strategies forand the challenges of articulating social and biological vari-ables. Rather than simply describing the technical advan-ces that increase accuracy during analysis, these articlesfocus more on how variation in data may arise from a num-ber of sources, including differential taphonomic influences,mortuary practices, sampling methods, and data collection.Furthermore, several of the authors review and critiquecore underlying assumptions that researchers often makeconcerning the nature of skeletal data and then discuss howthese assumptions can affect results and conclusions. Forthese reasons, the volume is very well suited for use incourses that focus on or touch on bioarchaeology. I haverecently incorporated many of the chapters into my gradu-ate level bioarchaeology seminar with great success. Fur-thermore, despite the technical nature of many of the con-tributions, the overall concepts are generally presented inan organized and clear format that would not at all precludetheir use in advanced undergraduate seminars.

GABRIEL D. WROBEL

Department of AnthropologyMichigan State UniversityEast Lansing, MI

DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.22509Published online 11 March 2014 in Wiley Online Library

(wileyonlinelibrary.com).

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