A collection of research on migration, diet, and health in the past across a culturally complex region
 
“Succeeds in providing good coverage of the current state of scientific research on major issues in two broad subject areas in bioarchaeology: (a) population history and interaction, and (b) community health with a focus on diet and disease.”—American Journal of Physical Anthropology
 
“The range of ecological contexts and subsistence practices, the time depth, and the geographical expanse represented in the book amply demonstrate the important role that studies of Asian prehistory should play in addressing the big questions of human biological history.”—Journal of Anthropological Research
 
“Extremely useful as a good introduction to the region and as a resource for comparative data for scholars in Asia and the Pacific.”—Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology
 
“A welcomed compendium to a large anthropological body of research, which had previously lacked data from this historically and culturally diverse region, covering the areas from the western Inner Asian steppes east to Japan, and from Mongolia in the north, south to the tropical Malay Archipelago.”—Anthropos
 
"A rich, synthetic view of East Asian (pre)history—the migration patterns, the cultural interactions, and the health profiles of these large and diverse populations. This daunting task is well achieved through thoughtful bioarchaeological studies that incorporate varied methodological and theoretical perspectives."—Tiffiny A. Tung, Vanderbilt University

"Successful in meeting its rather ambitious goal of drawing together bioarchaeological research over a very large and complex region of the globe. A significant contribution to many central archaeological questions in an area of the world that is often overlooked."—Sian Halcrow, University of Otago


Bioarchaeology of East Asia integrates studies on migration, diet, and diverse aspects of health through the study of human skeletal collections in a region that developed varying forms of agriculture. East Asia’s complex population movements and cultural practices provide biological markers that allow for the testing of multiple hypotheses about interactions in past communities.


Exploring the interplay between humans and their environments, this volume considers millet agriculture, mobile pastoralism with limited cereal farming, and rice farming in combination with reliance on marine resources. Many of these rare subsistence strategies are more or less exclusive to East Asia. These advanced contributions will significantly boost collaborative work among bioarchaeologists and other scientists working in the region.

Kate Pechenkina is dean of faculty, School of Social Sciences, at Queens College of the City University of New York. Marc Oxenham, reader in archaeology and bioanthropology at Australian National University, is the editor of Forensic Approaches to Death, Disaster and Abuse.
 
A volume in the series Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives, edited by Clark Spencer Larsen

Sample Chapter(s):

Table of Contents

Excerpt

If you are looking for a current assessment of advances in the bioarchaeology of China and Japan, this book is for you--informative and rewarding.
--American Journal of Physical Anthropology

Make[s] new information available to the global audience illustrate[s] the scope of current work.
--Journal of Anthropological Research

This is a data-rich book… making a big contribution to the “biological costs of agriculture” literature for a region and economic systems (i.e., millet, wheat, barley) previously underrepresented.
--Journal of Island & Coastal Archaeology

Attempts to tackle important topics related to the dynamics of population spread, cultural contact, subsistence shifts, and how each is connected to regional diachronic health trends across a region that has recently advanced to the forefront within the global scientific community.
--Rezensionen