The Bioarchaeology of violence

Abstract

The Bioarchaeology of Violence. DEBRA L. MARTIN, RYAN P. HARROD, and VENTURA R. PEREZ (eds.). Foreword by Clark Spencer Larsen. University Press of Florida, 2012. xiii, 291 pp., ill., maps. $74.95 (cloth), ISBN 13: 978-0-8130-4150-6; $24.95 (paper), ISBN: 978-08130-4950-2.Violence and trauma are ubiquitous in past and present populations, but they are often reduced to frequencies and descriptions of lesions in bioarchaeological discussions. In The Bioarchaeology of Violence, the editors and authors breathe life and meaning into their discussions of violence in past populations and frequently focus on the experience of individuals in those populations.The first section of the book integrates papers on method and theory. Ventura Perez examines violence from a perspective the goes beyond trauma to the complexity of cultural behaviors and beliefs associated with violence. Haagen Klaus takes a related approach to structural violence, offering a case study from Peru that shows how structural violence leads to other social inequalities. Ryan Harrod, Pierre Lienard, and Debra Martin discuss the use of ethnographic information as a bridge to interpreting violence in past populations.In a second section, three chapters on small-scale conflict tackle the interpretation of individuals. Robert Montgomery and Megan Perry present a study of six individuals from Jordan during the seventh to eighth centuries, a time of political upheaval. Community violence in the fourteenth century Southwest site of Arroyo Hondo is discussed by Ann Palkovich, who argues that violence does not necessarily indicate conflict. Kristin Kuckelman details the signatures of strife in terminal Pueblo III settlements in the Southwest, tying together drought with escalating hostile relations.A third section on warfare incorporates three chapters on trauma associated with large-scale conflicts. Heather Wome, Charles Cobb, Giovanna Vidoli, and Dawnie Wolfe Steadman examine violence and spatial organization in Tennessee. They argue that the location of settlements is based on both resource optimization and protection, sometimes resulting in less optimal resource zones. Vera Tiesler and Andrea Cucina examine cranial trauma among the Maya, linking the types of weapons used and the location of wounds to conclude that most wounds were not the result of face to face combat. Tiffiny Tung looks at ancient Peruvian violence against women, specifically detailing the different treatments of local versus foreign women. …