The History of European Health Project: a history of health in Europe from the late Paleolithic era to the present.

The United States National Science Foundation has recently funded a large collaborative project on "A History of Health in Europe from the Late Paleolithic Era to the Present," whose goal is to measure and analyzes the evolution of skeletal health by combining data from human remains with information gathered from sources in archaeology, climate history, geography, and history. The goal of this international collaborative project is to create a series of database that will allow researchers to reinterpret the history of human health in Europe from the late Paleolithic era to the early twentieth century. During this period, human health and welfare were transformed enormously by the transition from foraging to farming; the rise of cities and complex forms of social and political organization; European colonization; and industrialization. With a trans-Atlantic network of collaborators, we will undertake large-scale comparative studies of the causes and health consequences of these and other dramatic changes in arrangements for work, living, and human interaction.

Biological structure and health implications from tooth size at Mission San Luis de Apalachee.

This study analyzes dental metric variation to examine the biological structure of the native population at Mission San Luis de Apalachee, a late 17th century mission located in the Apalachee Province of Spanish colonial Florida. Three topics are addressed: (1) comparison of tooth sizes among adult and subadults, (2) analysis of the bio-spatial structure of skeletons within the church area, and (3) comparison of phenotypic profiles of individuals interred within coffins in the ritual nucleus of the church: the altar region. Analyses indicate that subadults had smaller average tooth sizes than adults for the posterior dentition that was particularly evident in mandibular nonpolar molars and premolars. This disparity, also documented in two other mission populations, likely represents ontogenetic stress and resulting increased mortality among those most at risk for early death. Analysis of the spatial structure of graves failed to document biological structuring by side of the aisle or by burial row, although some gross differences were evident when front, middle, and rear church burials were compared. Individuals buried in coffins within the same row were phenotypically similar to one another. However, inter-row comparisons indicated lack of phenotypic similarity among all coffin interments. These analyses suggest maintenance of kin-structured burial for elites alone within the San Luis community.