Interdisciplinary explorations of the Mesoamerican past

Abstract

Bioarchaeology of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica: an interdisciplinary approach is the latest volume in a series from the University Press of Florida ‘Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives’, edited by Clark Spencer Larsen. With this contribution the series now comprises 20 published volumes that take a bioarchaeological approach to the study of ancient human remains from various regions and time periods. Bioarchaeology is a term that was introduced in the USA in the late 1970s by biological anthropologist Jane Buikstra to describe the application of biological anthropology to archaeological research questions. Its use has become increasingly common in recent decades among scholars in the USA, Latin America and Europe, although in the UK the term Osteoarchaeology is more commonly used to describe this research. Whichever name one prefers, a common thread is the shift from typological and descriptive osteological monographs towards an emphasis on applying theoretical models and interdisciplinary approaches to reconstructing the life histories, health and population dynamics of past societies from the analysis of human remains.