Life and death on the Nile : a bioethnography of three ancient Nubian communities /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Armelagos, George J., author.
Imprint:Gainesville : University Press of Florida, 2017.
©2017
Description:1 online resource
Language:English
Subject:
Format: E-Resource Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11914355
Hidden Bibliographic Details
Other authors / contributors:Van Gerven, Dennis P., author.
ISBN:9780813052861
0813052866
9780813054452
0813054451
Notes:Includes bibliographical references and index.
Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed September 8, 2017).
Summary:George J. Armelagos spent thirty years at various sites in Sudan searching for ancient Nubian civilizations that gave rise to what we now know as the upper Nile civilizations. Most of these sites are now underwater, due to being inundated when the Aswan Dam was built on the Upper Nile and flooded the ancient cities of Wadi Halfa and Kulubnarti. While hundreds of articles have been written about the research at these sites, this monograph, where Armelagos invited his former student Dennis Van Gerven to collaborate with him, represents the first attempt to explore all of the biocultural relationships between the villages, the people, and the region.
Other form:Print version: Armelagos, George J. Life and death on the Nile. Gainesville : University Press of Florida, 2017
Description
Summary:"A gem. Armelagos and Van Gerven's research on the skeletal biology of one region of the Nile Valley offers an engaging history of science as told through physical anthropology."--Alan C. Swedlund, coeditor of Plagues and Epidemics: Infected Spaces Past and Present "Captures the essence of the biocultural approach to anthropology and Nubian life in the past."--Margaret A. Judd, University of Pittsburgh "This truly enjoyable book and excellent research is a wonderful example of the collaborative investigations and advanced methodologies that characterize scholarship elucidating the lives of ancient Nubians."--Michele R. Buzon, Purdue University <p>A monumental synthesis of a half century of research, this book investigates human remains from three communities from the ancient Nubian civilization of the Nile River Valley: Meinarti, Kulubnarti, and an unnamed shantytown of underclass laborers. The analyses of these surveys chart the evolution of the field of physical anthropology. During the first archaeological expeditions to Nubia in the early nineteenth century, anthropologists set out to identify the races of Nubian peoples during the rise and fall of their civilization, while the second wave of expeditions to Nubia in the 1930s caused a backlash against this racial determinism.</p> <p>The analyses at Wadi Halfa, part of the third-wave expeditions to Nubia sponsored by UNESCO in the 1960s, helped inspire the "biocultural approach" to human biology now used by anthropologists worldwide. Life and Death on the Nile, the life's work of two highly accomplished anthropologists, exemplifies the very best of this perspective.</p> <p>George Armelagos and Dennis Van Gerven present studies of cranial morphology and evolution in Nubian populations. They look at patterns of physiological stress and disease, as well as growth and development, in infants and children. They study bone fractures and age-related bone loss in adults, and they discuss case studies of diseases such as cancers and congenital defects. Focusing on the link between human biology and the cultural and natural environment, they provide a holistic view of the lives of ancient Nubian peoples.</p> George J. Armelagos (1936-2014) was the Goodrich C. White Professor of Anthropology at Emory University. One of the founders of the field of bioarchaeology, he was coeditor of Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture . Dennis P. Van Gerven is professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Physical Description:1 online resource
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:9780813052861
0813052866
9780813054452
0813054451