Debra Martin

Bodies and Lives in Ancient America

Routledge eBooks, Oct 30, 2015

10 The Bioarchaeology of Pain and Suffering: Human Adaptation and Survival during Troubled Times

Archeological Papers of The American Anthropological Association, May 1, 2016

ABSTRACTAncient human remains can be analyzed with an eye toward clarifying the limits of human a... more ABSTRACTAncient human remains can be analyzed with an eye toward clarifying the limits of human adaptation to many of life's hardships. Data collected from the remnants of skeletonized bodies provides information on the costs of living under trying times and the pain, suffering, and disability experienced. Focusing on the survivors of stressful conditions such as colonization, endemic warfare, climate change, or slavery provides a way to examine the experience of survival as well as the human costs of adapting to the environmental or political‐economic processes creating the condition.

Climate change, human health, and resilience in the Holocene

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Interpreting Trauma and Social Violence from Skeletal Remains

Routledge eBooks, Dec 2, 2022

Interpretations of social violence from skeletal remains is key in providing data that informs us... more Interpretations of social violence from skeletal remains is key in providing data that informs us on the origin and evolution of violence in human groups and provides information on how and why violence is used by humans to solve a problem or produce an effect. Through the integration of biological and contextual data with social theory, bioarchaeologists have identified and interpreted a broad range of violent practices, including warfare, ritualized combat, hand to hand fighting, raids and ransacking, massacres, torture, executions, witchcraft, captive-taking, slavery, anthropophagy, intimate partner and child abuse, scalping, and human sacrifice. Distinguishing trauma due to social violence versus trauma from accidents and other causes is similarly challenging but possible by integrating all available skeletal and contextual information to identify socially significant patterns in the skeletal data. Integrating biological data with culturally specific contextual information offers offer how and why violence manifests in a wide variety of forms and expressions across different cultures from the past to the present.

Twenty‐first century bioarchaeology: Taking stock and moving forward

American Journal of Biological Anthropology, 2022

This article presents outcomes from a Workshop entitled “Bioarchaeology: Taking Stock and Moving ... more This article presents outcomes from a Workshop entitled “Bioarchaeology: Taking Stock and Moving Forward,” which was held at Arizona State University (ASU) on March 6–8, 2020. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the School of Human Evolution and Social Change (ASU), and the Center for Bioarchaeological Research (CBR, ASU), the Workshop's overall goal was to explore reasons why research proposals submitted by bioarchaeologists, both graduate students and established scholars, fared disproportionately poorly within recent NSF Anthropology Program competitions and to offer advice for increasing success. Therefore, this Workshop comprised 43 international scholars and four advanced graduate students with a history of successful grant acquisition, primarily from the United States. Ultimately, we focused on two related aims: (1) best practices for improving research designs and training and (2) evaluating topics of contemporary significance that reverberate through histor...

Across a Spectrum of Inequality

Bones of Complexity, 2017

A macroscopic analysis of infantile scurvy from Zape, Mexico (AD 600-1430)

The examination of scurvy by paleopathologists has provided increasingly innovative diagnostic me... more The examination of scurvy by paleopathologists has provided increasingly innovative diagnostic methods for identifying and assessing the impact of this metabolic disorder in past populations (e.g. Schultz 2001; Brickley & Ives 2008). Recent work on the macroscopic analysis of scurvy in non-adult skeletal remains suggests that diagnostic criteria for identifying scurvy in immature individuals may be different from those applied to adult remains (Brown & Ortner 2011). Additionally, this same study argued that lesions on the pelvis suggest severe manifestations of the disease. Data are reported for the mummified and/or skeletonized remains of 11 infants from Zape, Mexico. Given the unique context of these interments (burial complete with shrouds, pillows, grave goods and clay architecture), it is likely that these infants were buried in a ritual manner and therefore the sample of infants may not reflect typical patterns of infant health. Although the sample size is small, 5 (45%) of the infants show lesions suggestive of scurvy. The patterning of periosteal lesions is described in detail, with an emphasis on examples from two of the infants who exhibit widespread lesions, both consistent with severe manifestations of the condition. Comparisons to clinical data demonstrate that lesions present on the mandibles, crania, scapulae and pelvic bones of these two individuals are consistent with micro-hemorrhaging near muscle attachment sites (e.g. Larralde et al. 2007). Overall, these data support an emerging interpretation of lesion patterns indicative of infantile scurvy and suggest that disease severity may in fact be reflected in lesion distribution and intensity.

Injury recidivism, trauma, and pathology in the multi-ethnic community at Grasshopper Pueblo (AD 1275-1400)

1. Gendered Violence in Small- Scale Societies in the Past

New York University Press eBooks, Jul 14, 2020

Gendered Violence in Small-Scale Societies in the Past

The climate change–witch execution connection

Routledge eBooks, Oct 12, 2020

No Better Angels Here: Bioarchaeology of Non-Lethal Head Wounds in the Greater Southwest (AD 900-1350)

The 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, 2015

The Tomb at Tell Abraq (ca. 2100–2000 BC)

University Press of Florida eBooks, Jun 25, 2019

Broken bodies and broken bones: Biocultural approaches to ancient slavery and torture

The Climate Change-Witch Execution Connection: Living with Environmental Uncertainty on the Colorado Plateau

The Tomb at Tell Abraq (Ca 2100-2000 BC): Demographic Structure and Mortuary Complexity

Often the Victims, Occasionally the Aggressors: The Role of Women in Warfare and Raiding in the Ancestral Pueblo World

The 84th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, 2019

Bioarchaeology Case Studies of Slavery, Captivity and Other Forms of Exploitation

Children of the Working Class

University Press of Florida eBooks, May 20, 2014

Commingled and Disarticulated Human Remains

Springer eBooks, 2014

Bodies and Lives in Ancient America

Routledge eBooks, Oct 30, 2015

10 The Bioarchaeology of Pain and Suffering: Human Adaptation and Survival during Troubled Times

Archeological Papers of The American Anthropological Association, May 1, 2016

Climate change, human health, and resilience in the Holocene

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Interpreting Trauma and Social Violence from Skeletal Remains

Routledge eBooks, Dec 2, 2022

Twenty‐first century bioarchaeology: Taking stock and moving forward

American Journal of Biological Anthropology, 2022

Across a Spectrum of Inequality

Bones of Complexity, 2017

A macroscopic analysis of infantile scurvy from Zape, Mexico (AD 600-1430)

Injury recidivism, trauma, and pathology in the multi-ethnic community at Grasshopper Pueblo (AD 1275-1400)

Blurring the Boundaries between the Living and the Dead: The Bioarchaeology of Postmortem Agency

by John J Crandall and Debra Martin

Thematic Section: Blurring the Boundaries between the Living and the Dead: The Bioarchaeology of Postmortem Agency, edited by JJ Crandall & DL Martin, Oct 2014

Archaeology increasingly acknowledges the porous conceptual boundaries dividing the living from t... more Archaeology increasingly acknowledges the porous conceptual boundaries dividing the living from the dead. Deconstructions of how Cartesian thinking still hampers bioarchaeology have recast dead bodies and their accouterments as dynamic symbols and tools which often engage the living. This special section of papers confronts ongoing efforts to nuance understandings of death, the body, and social agency in archaeology through bioarchaeological studies of the social afterlives of the biologically-expired, or ‘postmortem agency’. Papers each differently define postmortem agency as it best works conceptually regarding the data they provide. Agency is well-theorized in archaeology yet lack frequent integration of biological and taphonomic data derived from the study of dead bodies. Materiality and embodiment theories, in particular, have opened up avenues for bioarchaeologists to adapt existing models of agency to skeletal and mortuary data sets. To illustrate the merit of making postmortem agency a focus of bioarchaeological work, this section presents seven papers and two overview discussions rich with novel approaches and data sets emerging from shifting focus away from the living and towards dead bodies and post-human spirits in various contexts. These papers make clear that developing a bioarchaeology of undeath can only enliven both archaeological reconstructions of ancient community life and the development of social theory across all fields of anthropology.

The Battle Over Violence

by Gwen Robbins Schug and Debra Martin

Science, May 18, 2012

Bioarchaeology of Climate Change and Violence

Commingled and Disarticulated Human Remains: Working Toward Improved Theory, Method, and Data

by Anna Osterholtz, Kathryn M Baustian, and Debra Martin

Commingled and Disarticulated Human Remains:Working Toward Improved Theory, Method, and Data brin... more Commingled and Disarticulated Human Remains:Working Toward Improved Theory, Method, and Data brings together research that provides innovative methodologies for the analysis of commingled human remains. It has temporal and spatial breadth, with case studies coming from pre-state to historic periods, as well as from both the New and Old World. Highlights of this volume include:
standardizes methods and presents best practices in the field using a case study approach
demonstrates how data gathered from commingled human remains can be incorporated into the overall interpretation of a site
explores best way to formulate population size, using commingled remains

Field archaeologists, bioarchaeologists, academic anthropologists, forensic anthropologists, zoo archaeologists, and students of anthropology and archaeology will find this to be an invaluable resource.

Bodies and Lives in Ancient America: Health Before Columbus

by Anna Osterholtz and Debra Martin

Bodies and Lives in Ancient America offers a broad overview of what it was like to live and die t... more Bodies and Lives in Ancient America offers a broad overview of what it was like to live and die throughout North America before European contact. Using a unique life history approach, the book moves from pregnancy and birth through to senescence. Drawing on biological data gathered from human remains, as well as cultural and environmental data derived from archaeological investigations, the authors provide students with a wealth of information on health and other aspects of life that leave changes on the skeletal system. Rich case studies throughout demonstrate the temporal, cultural and environmental variability across the continent prior to colonial times. The authors also examine how different groups faced a variety of challenges in their lives, including climate change and violence, and the effects this had on their health. The book concludes by considering the relevance of what ancient bones reveal for people today. Written in an engaging style, with complex paleopathology data synthesized and clearly presented, Bodies and Lives in Ancient America is an accessible introduction to the state of health across prehistoric North America.

Differential diagnosis of a progressive neuromuscular disorder using bioarchaeological and biogeochemical evidence from a bronze age skeleton in the UAE

by Alecia Schrenk, Debra Martin, and D.T. Potts

Bioarchaeologists frequently rely on differential diagnoses to examine pathological conditions in... more Bioarchaeologists frequently rely on differential diagnoses to examine pathological conditions in ancient
human skeletons. However, this method is often hindered by the skeleton’s limited response abilities,
resulting in similar skeletal expressions across multiple diseases. These diseases can be placed into perspective by using stable isotope analysis to explore the life course of an individual. In the current study,
strontium, oxygen, and carbon isotope values from the dental enamel of a young (18–20 year old) paraplegic female interred within the Bronze Age Tomb of Tell Abraq are used to explore her life course and
give perspective on a previously indeterminate differential diagnosis involving a progressive neuromuscular disorder. This individual’s isotope values show that she was a non-local migrant who arrived at Tell
Abraq sometime after 15 years of age and that her immigrant status may have placed her at enhanced
immunological risk for developing paralytic poliomyelitis. We argue that biogeochemical analysis can
be used to go beyond questions of residential mobility to examine the lifeways and broader cultural
practices of ancient peoples.

2023_Climate change, human health, and resilience in the Holocene

by Gwen Robbins Schug, Brenda Baker, Lynne Goldstein, Lesley Gregoricka, Debra Martin, and Megan Perry

PNAS, 2023

Climate change is an indisputable threat to human health, especially for societies already confro... more Climate change is an indisputable threat to human health, especially for societies already confronted with rising social inequality, political and economic uncertainty, and a cascade of concurrent environmental challenges. Archaeological data about past climate and environment provide an important source of evidence about the potential challenges humans face and the long-term outcomes of alternative short-term adaptive strategies. Evidence from well-dated archaeological human skeletons and mummified remains speaks directly to patterns of human health over time through changing circumstances. Here, we describe variation in human epidemiological patterns in the context of past rapid climate change (RCC) events and other periods of past environmental change. Case studies confirm that human communities responded to environmental changes in diverse ways depending on historical, sociocultural, and biological contingencies. Certain factors, such as social inequality and disproportionate access to resources in large, complex societies may influence the probability of major sociopolitical disruptions and reorganizations—commonly known as “collapse.” This survey of Holocene human–environmental relations demonstrates how flexibility, variation, and maintenance of Indigenous knowledge can be mitigating factors in the face of environmental challenges. Although contemporary climate change is more rapid and of greater magnitude than the RCC events and other environmental changes we discuss here, these lessons from the past provide clarity about potential priorities for equitable, sustainable development and the constraints of modernity we must address.

The Bioarchaeology of Pain and Suffering: Human Adaptation and Survival during Troubled Times

New Directions In Bioarchaeology

Ancient human remains can be analyzed with an eye toward clarifying the limits of human adaptatio... more Ancient human remains can be analyzed with an eye toward clarifying the limits of human adaptation to many of life's hardships. Data collected from the remnants of skeletonized bodies provides information on the costs of living under trying times and the pain, suffering, and disability experienced. Focusing on the survivors of stressful conditions such as colonization, endemic warfare, climate change, or slavery provides a way to examine the experience of survival as well as the human costs of adapting to the environmental or political-economic processes creating the condition.

Beaten Down and Worked to the Bone: Bioarchaeological investigations of women and violence in the American Southwest

SAAarchaeological Record

31 March 2012• The SAA Archaeological Record NEW DIRECTIONS IN BIOARCHAEOLOGY cultural perspectiv... more 31 March 2012• The SAA Archaeological Record NEW DIRECTIONS IN BIOARCHAEOLOGY cultural perspective on humans as both biological and cultural beings. As a subdiscipline, bioarchaeology is emerging as a specialty that holds a unique place within anthropology, with one foot in biological anthropology and one foot in archaeology privileging each equally. However, bioarchaeology aims to be much more than a sum of osteological data plus archaeological context. As such, bioarchaeology is rooted in anthropological theory, and it has the potential as few ...

by Debra Martin, Ryan P Harrod, and Misty Fields

Landscapes of Violence

The study of violence is generally androcentric in its focus, with emphasis on men and their purs... more The study of violence is generally androcentric in its focus, with emphasis on men and their pursuit of resources, power, and prestige. Neglected is the role and motivations of the women in violence, and this is especially true in raiding. With the analysis of over sixty Ancestral Pueblo human remains from La Plata Valley as a case study, this study is focused on the relationship between the women in the culture and interpersonal violence. The basic questions that this project addresses are: (1) Does the pattern of trauma vary and are there certain individuals who are at more risk within the culture (i.e., appear “beaten down”)? (2) Are there certain portions of the culture that appear to have worked harder during their lifetime (i.e., been “worked to the bone”)? (3) What can the differential patterning of pathology, trauma, and early death across the population reveal regarding the roles of men and women in raiding societies? In order to answer these questions several categories were evaluated according to age and sex. These factors include non-lethal injury (especially trauma to the head), mortuary status (e.g., burial position and grave goods), and muscular stress markers or enthesopathies. The results of this analysis present a picture of inequality within the La Plata population with obvious morbidity differences between women of varying status. The results of this study found that were two groups of women living in La Plata. The local women who lacked cranial trauma, received a culturally appropriate burial, and showed little evidence of muscular stress markers. The women that may have been obtained from raids had cranial trauma, were thrown haphazardly into abandoned pits, and possessed clear signs of having worked hard throughout their lives. This study looked closely at the relationship between women, work, and violence, and results suggest that the local women living at La Plata may have been attempting to reduce their own morbidity risks by both sanctioning and supporting the subordination of captive women obtained in raiding activities. The captive women (having been beaten and worked to the bone) benefited both the local men and women at La Plata. This study shows the complex ways that structural violence works, the potential for gender based functional differences in violent behaviors, and the ways that violence becomes culturally normalized.

Taphonomy After the Fact: Violence and ritual in Room 33 at Chaco and Room 178 at Aztec

Landscapes of Violence

Ethnobioarchaeology

SAA Archaeological Record

Teaching Violence

Anthropology News

Tell Abraq: New Research on the Skeletal Remains

by Anna Osterholtz and Debra Martin

American Schools of Oriental Research, 2012

Examination of research conducted up to 2012 utilizing the Tell Abraq Skeletal assemblage.

Cranial Depression Fractures in the Tell Abraq Tomb Assemblage, UAE.

by Anna Osterholtz and Debra Martin

Moving Beyond Migration: Using Biogeochemical Data from a Bronze Age Skeleton for Differential Diagnosis of a Progressive Neuromuscular Disorder

by Alecia Schrenk, Debra Martin, and D.T. Potts

Stable isotope analysis has been particularly useful in the exploration of lived experiences in p... more Stable isotope analysis has been particularly useful in the exploration of lived experiences in past cultures. To date, however, no studies have used biogeochemical data to assist with differential diagnosis, and from this, to improve reconstructions of life courses. Here, strontium, oxygen, and carbon isotope values from the teeth of a young (18-20 year old) female with paraplegia from Bronze Age Tell Abraq (UAE) were used to reexamine a previously indeterminate diagnosis of a progressive neuromuscular disorder. First (87Sr/86Sr=0.70865; 18O=1.6‰; 13C=-13.2‰) and third (87Sr/86Sr = 0.70862; 18O=1.6‰; 13C=-13.0‰) molar isotope values were considerably different from local individuals interred in the communal tomb, indicating that her childhood residence differed from those who grew up at Tell Abraq. These data also suggested that she migrated there after 15 years of age but before her death at 18-20 years old. Given this information, a previously conducted differential diagnosis unable to differentiate between cerebral palsy and poliomyelitis was reevaluated. Her newly-identified residential mobility made it unlikely that she suffered from cerebral palsy, which would have made long distance travel problematic; instead, she likely contracted poliomyelitis in her late teens upon moving to this more densely populated settlement. Due to large quantities of nonlocal goods recovered from the tomb, we also explore exogamous marriage practices and trade relations that may have placed this young woman at increased risk for developing a progressive neuromuscular disease. These results illustrate how isotopes can be used to give unique insight into paleopathological investigations as well as past lived experiences.

Gender Inequality in the Ancient Southwest (AD 900-1350): Non-lethal head wounds as evidence of institutionalized violence

Applying the Index of Care to the Case Study of a Bronze Age Teenager who Lived with Paralysis: Moving from Speculation to Strong Inference.

by Alecia Schrenk and Debra Martin

Bioarchaeology has come a long way in using differential diagnosis, attending to the osteological... more Bioarchaeology has come a long way in using differential diagnosis, attending to the osteological paradox, using biocultural frameworks to integrate different levels of analysis, and developing ways to work with small sample sizes and fragmentary remains.The Index of Care, designed to support bioarchaeology of care research, offers a new scientifically-based and systematic tool to collect and integrate a range of information in life history, disease processes, and cultural context. This online tool assists researchers to work with multiple lines of evidence by providing a rigorous four step process for describing pathologies, determining disabilities, constructing a care model, and examining caregiving implications. However, bioarchaeology of care analysis is challenging when differential diagnosis is unable to rule out more than one possible disease.In examining how to approach this problem, the authors applied the Index of Care to the case of a young female with a lower limb paralysis most likely resulting from one of two conditions.The authors create parallel interpretations through the construction of two care models, providing a basis for strong inference regarding the experience of paralysis.

Conclusion: A Bioarchaeological Model of Climate Change and Violence

Deciphering Violence in Past Societies: Ethnography and the Interpretation of Archaeological Populatio

SpringerBriefs in Anthropology, 2013

Bioarchaeological Contributions to the Study of Violence HUMANS HAVE A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE AND VIOLENCE HAS A HISTORY 1

The Bioarchaeology of Violence, 2012

Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, 2015

The bioarchaeological record has an abundance of scientific evidence based on skeletal indicators... more The bioarchaeological record has an abundance of scientific evidence based on skeletal indicators of trauma to argue for a long history of internal and external group conflict. However, the findings also suggest variability, nuance, and unevenness in the type, use, and meaning of violence across time and space and therefore defy generalizations or easy quan-tification. Documenting violence-related behaviors provides an overview of the often unique and sometimes patterned cultural use of violence. Violence (lethal and nonlethal) is often associated with social spheres of influence and power connected to daily life such as subsistence intensification, specialization, competition for scarce resources, climate, population density, territorial protection and presence of immigrants, to name just a few. By using fine-grained biocultural analyses that interrogate trauma data in particular places at particular times in reconstructed archaeological contexts , a more comprehensive view into the histories and experiences of violence emerges. Moreover, identifying culturally specific patterns related to age, sex, and social status provide an increasingly complex picture of early small-scale groups. Some forms of ritual violence also have restorative and regenerative aspects that strengthen community identity. Bioarchaeological data can shed light on the ways that violence becomes part of a given cultural landscape. Viewed in a biocultural context, evidence of osteological trauma provides rich insights into social relationships and the many ways that violence is embedded within those relationships.