Near Eastern bioarchaeology

rdf:langString Near Eastern bioarchaeology

rdf:langString Near Eastern bioarchaeology covers the study of human skeletal remains from archaeological sites in Cyprus, Egypt, Levantine coast, Jordan, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Yemen. Recent years have seen increased contributions in the application of bioarchaeological methods in investigating past populations in many areas around the world. Human osteological studies in the early 20th century were mostly descriptive and often overlooked the synthesis of biological, archaeological and historical narratives. It is only in the 1970s that bioarchaeology gained traction in concurrence with a change in the methodological approaches occurring in biological anthropology. In the Eastern Mediterranean these trends are exemplified in the seminal work on ancient population dynamics and health by J. Lawrence Angel, which prompted scholars from various backgrounds (e.g. archaeologists, anthropologists, prehistorians/historians, biological anthropologists) to communicate at a multi-disciplinary level. This facilitated and promoted research that relied on contextually informed perspectives of the human past, for example, bioarchaeologists began to analyze data at the level of a population rather than at an individual level, and then they integrated their results within the environmental and historical context. In the Near East, bioarchaeological research has also witnessed an important advancement as the synthesis of bioarchaeological data with other lines of evidence is being systematically utilized to explore the lives of past populations in this archaeologically rich area. Such developments are often occurring within highly challenging socio-political contexts as certain countries (e.g. Syria, Yemen) are experiencing civil unrest and going through massive political upheaval. Nonetheless, there is an active trend of increasing and more integrated bioarchaeology projects in the Near East, which is anticipated to enhance our understanding on the diachronic interplay between ecological, socio-cultural, and political-economic developments in the region.