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7 - Parsing the Paradox

Examining Heterogeneous Frailty in Bioarchaeological Assemblages

from Part II - (Re)Discovery of Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2019

By
Sharon N. DeWitte
Edited by
Cathy Willermet  and
Sang-Hee Lee
Cathy Willermet
Affiliation:
Central Michigan University
Sang-Hee Lee
Affiliation:
University of California, Riverside
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Summary

It has been over 25 years since Wood and colleagues published their seminal paper describing the Osteological Paradox (Wood et al. 1992). The Osteological Paradox encompasses a set of phenomena that impede straightforward interpretations of demography and, particularly, health in past populations using data derived from human skeletal assemblages. Wood and colleagues’ seemingly daunting critiques of paleopathology and paleoepidemiology (as conventionally practiced) have not been universally accepted (see, for example: Cohen 1994; Goodman 1993). However, for many scholars in the field, recognition of the Osteological Paradox has inspired a search for creative approaches to skeletal data collection, analysis, and interpretation that will enable us to avoid making unjustified or incorrect inferences from the imperfect data available to us. Many researchers who wish to directly address the issues associated with the Osteological Paradox have been stymied by a lack of clarity or consensus regarding how to do so. This chapter briefly summarizes the Osteological Paradox and presents one possible way to engage with it, while simultaneously addressing socioeconomic differentials in morbidity, a topic of broad interest to anthropologists, human biologists, economists, and public health practitioners.

Type
Chapter
Information
Evaluating Evidence in Biological Anthropology
The Strange and the Familiar
 , pp. 126 - 145
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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