Bioarchaeology of East Asia : Movement, Contact, Health

A collection of research on migration, diet, and health in the past across a culturally complex region

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.