Teeth record pneumonia-and racism.

Research raises standards for working with anthropological collections.

Anthropologists' views on race, ancestry, and genetics.

Controversies over race conceptualizations have been ongoing for centuries and have been shaped, in part, by anthropologists. OBJECTIVE: To assess anthropologists' views on race, genetics, and ancestry. METHODS: In 2012 a broad national survey of anthropologists examined prevailing views on race, ancestry, and genetics. RESULTS: Results demonstrate consensus that there are no human biological races and recognition that race exists as lived social experiences that can have important effects on health. DISCUSSION: Racial privilege affects anthropologists' views on race, underscoring the importance that anthropologists be vigilant of biases in the profession and practice. Anthropologists must mitigate racial biases in society wherever they might be lurking and quash any sociopolitical attempts to normalize or promote racist rhetoric, sentiment, and behavior.

Anthropology in Agricultural Health and Safety Research and Intervention.

Agriculture remains a dangerous industry, even as agricultural science and technology continue to advance. Research that goes beyond technological changes to address safety culture and policy are needed to improve health and safety in agriculture. In this commentary, I consider the potential for anthropology to contribute to agricultural health and safety research by addressing three aims: (1) I briefly consider what the articles in this issue of the Journal of Agromedicine say about anthropologists in agricultural health and safety; (2) I discuss what anthropologists can add to agricultural health and safety research; and (3) I examine ways in which anthropologists can participate in agricultural health and safety research. In using their traditions of rigorous field research to understand how those working in agriculture perceive and interpret factors affecting occupational health and safety (their "emic" perspective), and translating this perspective to improve the understanding of occupational health professionals and policy makers (an "etic" perspective), anthropologists can expose myths that limit improvements in agricultural health and safety. Addressing significant questions, working with the most vulnerable agricultural communities, and being outside establishment agriculture provide anthropologists with the opportunity to improve health and safety policy and regulation in agriculture.

Aproximaciones a la antropología criminal desde la perspectiva de Lombroso / vApproaches to criminal anthropology from Lombroso’s perspective / Abordagens para a antropologia criminal a partir da perspectivade Lombroso

El paradigma criminológico lombrosiano es aún hoy sustento de investigaciones criminológicas, en su mayoría norteamericanas y europeas, que han sido galardonadas y empleadas para controlar y prevenir la comisión de conductas punibles. No obstante, la historia ha demostrado que apreciaciones de este tipo están lejos de dar solución al tema de la criminalidad, y que, por el contrario, le abren la puerta a la intolerancia, la segregación y la arbitrariedad. Dentro de este marco, conviene señalar que en el presente artículo se desarrolla una reflexión sobre los planteamientos de Lombroso, con el objeto de proporcionar a los lectores elementos para que identifiquen, caractericen y adopten una posición frente al fenómeno de la delincuencia, a partir de la comprensión de la antropología criminal.

The Lombrosian criminological paradigm is still supporting today’s mostly prize winning North American and European criminological investigations used to control and prevent the commission of punishable behaviors. Nevertheless, history has proved that this type of appreciations is far from bringing a solution to the criminality issue and, on the contrary, they open the door to intolerance, segregation and arbitrariness. Within this framework, it is worth pointing out that in this article a reflection developed on Lombroso’s expositions is aimed at offering the readers some elements for them to identify, characterize and adopt a stand with regard to the criminality phenomenon, based on their comprehension of criminal anthropology.

O paradigma criminológico de Lombroso ainda hoje é um sustento das pesquisas criminológicas, principalmente norte-americanas e européias, que foram galardoadas e utilizadas para controlar e prevenir a prática de delitos. No entanto, a história tem mostrado que tais apreciações estão longe de resolver a questão do crime e, em vez disso, abrem a porta para a segregação, intolerância e arbitrariedade. Dentro deste marco, deve-se notar que neste artigo se desenvolve uma reflexão sobre os enfoques de Lombroso, a fim de fornecer aos leitores itens para identificar, caracterizar e tomar uma posição sobre o fenômeno do crime, a partir da compreensão da antropologia criminal.

Using the life history model to set the stage(s) of growth and senescence in bioarchaeology and paleodemography.

Paleodemography, the study of demographic parameters of past human populations, relies on assumptions including biological uniformitarianism, stationary populations, and the ability to determine point age estimates from skeletal material. These assumptions have been widely criticized in the literature and various solutions have been proposed. The majority of these solutions rely on statistical modeling, and have not seen widespread application. Most bioarchaeologists recognize that our ability to assess chronological age is inherently limited, and have instead resorted to large, qualitative, age categories. However, there has been little attempt in the literature to systematize and define the stages of development and ageing used in bioarchaeology. We propose that stages should be based in the human life history pattern, and their skeletal markers should have easily defined and clear endpoints. In addition to a standard five-stage developmental model based on the human life history pattern, current among human biologists, we suggest divisions within the adult stage that recognize the specific nature of skeletal samples. We therefore propose the following eight stages recognizable in human skeletal development and senescence: infancy, early childhood, late childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, full adulthood, mature adulthood, and senile adulthood. Striving toward a better prediction of chronological ages will remain important and could eventually help us understand to what extent past societies differed in the timing of these life stages. Furthermore, paleodemographers should try to develop methods that rely on the type of age information accessible from the skeletal material, which uses life stages, rather than point age estimates.

Reliability of metric determination of sex based on long-bone circumferences: perspectives from Yuigahama-minami, Japan.

The purpose of this study is to develop new standards to determine the sex of fragmentary human skeletal remains from archaeological sites in Japan. In order to accomplish this, we measured the long-bone circumferences of Japanese skeletons from the medieval period and provided metric diagnosis of sex using discriminant function analysis. We discuss whether the osteometric approach provides the criterion for sex assessment of human skeletal remains. The materials comprised human skeletal remains from the Yuigahama-minami site, Kamakura, Japan. The sample size used in this study was 68 males and 62 females excavated from individual burial graves. The accuracy of sex classification is more than 80% for discriminant functions with only one variable and reaches 90% for those with a combination of multiple variables. The multivariate functions provide better results than the univariate functions. Another improvement in sex diagnosis which this study contributes to is that new standards enabling reliable diagnosis with small numbers of variables are developed from well-preserved parts of the skeletons. This paper provides new standards, focusing on the diaphysial circumferences of limb bones from a medieval population, and will contribute to the advancement of medieval studies of skeletal remains from archaeological sites in Japan.

[Medical research-ethics applied to social sciences: relevance, limits, issues and necessary adjustments]. / L'éthique médicale appliquée aux sciences humaines et sociales: pertinence, limites, enjeux, et ajustements néessaires.

Social sciences are concretely concerned by the ethics of medical research when they deal with topics related to health, since they are subjected to clearance procedures specific to this field. This raises at least three questions: - Are principles and practices of medical research ethics and social science research compatible? - Are "research subjects" protected by medical research ethics when they participate in social science research projects? - What can social sciences provide to on-going debates and reflexion in this field? The analysis of the comments coming from ethics committees about social science research projects, and of the experience of implementation of these projects, shows that the application of international ethics standards by institutional review boards or ethics committees raises many problems in particular for researches in ethnology anthropology and sociology. These problems may produce an impoverishment of research, pervert its meaning, even hinder any research. They are not only related to different norms, but also to epistemological divergences. Moreover, in the case of studies in social sciences, the immediate and differed risks, the costs, as well as the benefits for subjects, are very different from those related to medical research. These considerations are presently a matter of debates in several countries such as Canada, Brasil, and USA. From another hand, ethics committees seem to have developed without resorting in any manner to the reflexion carried out within social sciences and more particularly in anthropology Still, the stakes of the ethical debates in anthropology show that many important and relevant issues have been discussed. Considering this debate would provide openings for the reflexion in ethics of health research. Ethnographic studies of medical research ethics principles and practices in various sociocultural contexts may also contribute to the advancement of medical ethics. A "mutual adjustment" between ethics of medical research and social sciences is presently necessary: it raises new questions open for debate.

How old are you now?

Cherkas et al. provide a new, biological approach to a classic problem in anthropology--the estimation of age.

[The School of Palaeopathology of Turin: from the histology of mummified tissues to the monitoring and programmed conservation of the mummies of the Egyptian Museum and the Anthropology Museum]. / La Scuola di Paleopatologia di Torino: dall'istologia dei tessuti mummificati al monitoraggio e alla conservazione programmata delle mummie del Museo Egizio e del Museo di Antropologia.

Scientific analyses, frequent revisions of historical collections and unsuitable preservation conditions in storage and display environments can cause damage to the anthropological patrimony. Therefore, there is an urgent need to establish criteria for the correct conservation of anthropological material according to a "standard of quality". Within the context of a broad and complex view of the protection of anthropological materials, the methodology followed by the research group is aimed at identifying a series of primary (diagnostic) and supportive (therapeutic) interactive processes. The final purpose of these processes is the programmed management of each specimen which is able to identify and control the activities necessary for conservation of the material.