Historical Bioarchaeology

This special topics course will focus on the field of bioarchaeology; that is, the study of human remains from archaeological contexts to answer questions about the human past. Thematically, this course will focus broadly on the America’s at and after European contact and colonialism but will also draw on global case studies to showcase the breadth of what the field considers ‘historical’. In fact, we will dig into the very term ‘historical’ and discuss its uses, issues, and delve into paths forward. This course examines the use of archival and ethnohistoric sources in concert with human skeletal data, we will discuss the benefits and difficulties of working with these paired datasets. Sometimes skeletal data are incomplete, and historical sources are valuable in helping fill in the gaps, while at the same time, history and historical texts are inherently biased, and the bioarchaeological record can corroborate, refute, or broaden a historical narrative.