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Palaeopathology: The Study of Ancient Disease in Archaeological Human and Nonhuman Remains

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Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology

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Introduction and Definition

The World Health Organization defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” This definition has not been amended since 1948 (http://www.who.int/suggestions/faq/en/, accessed July 26, 2017). This of course is a definition that relates to living populations but could be equally applied to the past. Being unhealthy today compromises normal life and the very function of society; this would have been true for our ancestors all over the world.

How can we study our ancestors’ health? It is possible to access information pertinent to health and disease in the past by studying historical documents describing disease, and viewing artistic representations of disease in particular periods in time (e.g., Fig. 1). In prehistoric times, these types of evidence are relatively nonexistent and they are more useful for more recent periods, for example, the medieval period in Europe. Our...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Archaeology, Durham University, Durham, UK

    Charlotte Roberts

Authors
  1. Charlotte Roberts
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Charlotte Roberts .

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Forensic Medicine, Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, Monash University, Southbank, VIC, Australia

    Soren Blau

  2. The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense, EAAF), Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Luis Fondebrider

  3. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA

    Douglas H. Ubelaker

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Roberts, C. (2018). Palaeopathology: The Study of Ancient Disease in Archaeological Human and Nonhuman Remains. In: Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_145-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_145-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51726-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51726-1

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