Daily risks: A biocultural approach to acute trauma in pre‐colonial coastal populations from Brazil

Brazilian coastal pre‐colonial skeletal series were examined for accidental fractures, which were grouped according to biomechanical interpretation of the causative events, and results were interpreted based on cultural and environmental aspects. More than 19% of the shell mound builders and 27% of the fisher–hunter–gatherers presented healed fractures. Both series presented balanced values between male and female (18.7 and 20%, respectively, for shell mound builders; 28.1 and 25.6%, respectively, for fisher‐hunter‐gatherers), and more than the double that proportion of the individuals (69.6% for shell mound builder and 88.5% for fisher–hunter–gatherers) had localised lesions, associated with only one traumatic event. The most common type of fractures were those caused by falls blocked by lower limbs (47.8% for shell mound builders and 46.1% for fisher–hunter–gatherers), interpreted as a result of moving along the rocky coastal cliffs. Despite these similarities, both series presented particular aspects which were related mainly to differences in subsistence strategies. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A New Application of the Bioarchaeology of Care Approach: A Case Study from the Metal Period,the Philippines

A case of disability in the Metal Period of the Philippines, likely requiring healthcare from others, is presented to explore aspects of group dynamics in this period of antiquity. B243, a middle‐aged man excavated from the Napa site in the central Philippines, suffered severe trauma to the right leg resulting in considerable restrictions to mobility and self‐maintenance of survival‐related behaviours such as food provision and hygiene. It is likely that B243 required assistance from others to survive for some period of time prior to eventual death. The bioarchaeology of care method was applied to assess the types of healthcare that B243 likely required and to consider potential social and biological impacts to both B243 and his community. Provision of healthcare practice in this case suggests that B243's community had access to health‐related resources, knowledge on the treatment of his injuries and underlying values in the group for sustaining human life in the case of injury and disability. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The skulls of Chief Nonosabasut and his wife Demasduit – Beothuk of Newfoundland

In March 1819 a young woman was abducted by white settlers and her husband was killed. They were among the few remaining members of the Beothuk of Newfoundland. Eight years later their skulls were removed from their burial hut and transferred to the University of Edinburgh. This paper describes these two important skulls and details injuries and pathologies not previously recorded in detail. Chief Nonosabasut displayed evidence of extensive trauma to the region of his chin which is most likely to be evidence of previous, but well‐healed, combat injuries. His wife, Demasduit, presented with an intriguing perimortem fracture to the left parietal bone which extended onto the base of the skull. This is discussed in the light of evidence available at the time of her death. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Schmorl's nodes in a post‐medieval skeletal sample from Klostermarienberg,Austria

The prevalence and distribution pattern of Schmorl's nodes (SNs) were studied in a post‐medieval skeletal sample (n = 473) from the 16^th–18^th century cemetery of Klostermarienberg, Austria. The reasons for the prevalence and distribution pattern of SNs in this sample are discussed with regard to their aetiology. SNs were correlated with age and sex as well as with degenerative spinal joint disease such as vertebral osteophytosis (VO) and apophyseal osteoarthritis (OA). SNs were most commonly found in the lower thoracic region, in agreement with other studies. Males were more affected than females by SNs, especially in the lower thoracic region. SNs show a completely different distribution pattern to VO and OA. Additionally, there was no relationship found between SNs and ageing. Observed differences in the prevalence of SNs in the vertebral column and between the sexes suggest that mechanical factors may be responsible. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the possible ritual marking of a young XVIIIth dynasty pig skull from Tell el‐Amarna,Middle Egypt

A young pig skull, excavated from an ancient Egyptian village near Tell el‐Amarna, Middle Egypt, presents a number of unusual features which are suggestive of ante‐mortem human intervention with subsequent localised infection of the bone. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Childhood trauma in several populations from the Iberian Peninsula

A study was conducted on a collection of 123 juvenile skeletons from various sites dating to the Bronze Age (Argar culture) and from the medieval cemeteries of La Torrecilla, Villanueva de Soportilla and San Baudelio, all in the Iberian Peninsula. No cranial trauma was observed. However, four postcranial fractures were found, including three from Castellón Alto, a typical Argaric village of some urban complexity built on steep terraces in high and rugged terrain. The combination of a hazardous environment and a climate that encourages outdoor play may explain the relatively high frequency of childhood trauma in the burials from the Argar culture. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis in Late Jomon Hokkaido,Japan

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyse the evidence for diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) in samples of human skeletal material recovered from Late Jomon (ca. 1500–300 BCE) and Okhotsk (CE 500–900) cultural period sites, northwestern Hokkaido, Japan. Two individuals from the Jomon period assemblage (n = 14) exhibited lesions consistent with DISH, while the larger Okhotsk sample (n = 39) was free of this condition. The aetiology of this condition is reviewed with reference to the clinical and bioarchaeological literature, in addition to behavioural and environmental considerations specific to this region and these time periods. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

TRAUMA DELEGITIMIZED: KARL LÖWITH AND THE COSMIC VIEW OF HISTORY

This article uncovers the work of trauma in Karl Löwith's historical thought. Although best known for his critique of the philosophy of history and for the conception of secularization in his 1949 book, Meaning in History, Löwith deepened his positive historical vision in several essays that he wrote in the 1950s and 1960s. From these texts emerges a unique historical orientation, which I call the “cosmic view of history.” This perspective was at once a critique of modern historical consciousness and an embodied corrective to that consciousness, one in which the catastrophes of the twentieth century were relativized and made endurable. In both the origin and structure of this historical orientation and in its textual expression in Löwith's work, trauma is a residual force that links Löwith's language, his experiences, and the postwar context. The role of trauma in Löwith's thought further reveals a process of delegitimization in which historical consciousness and historical events lose their power to determine historical meaning, thus enabling a response to and an escape from catastrophe. This article also explores the significance of this cosmic view of history for contemporary theoretical concerns related to the Anthropocene and its consequences for historical theory.     

HOW WE LIVE WITH THE PAST NOW

Michael Roth's new collection of essays, written over the last two decades, is held together by its author's pervasive concern with human temporality: our individual and collective passages through time, recorded by the faculty of memory, which pose some of our most intractable problems. The essays treat, and indeed provide a map to, several adjacent areas of inquiry: the history of the psychopathology of memory in the long nineteenth century; the vicissitudes of the trauma‐concept from its relatively modest medical origins to its postmodern apotheosis; and photography as a medium and art form embroiled in our relationship with the past. Roth's major interventions are threefold. First, while persuaded of the value of the psychoanalytic version of the trauma‐concept, he critiques the so‐called traumatophilia of postmodern theorists who, usually with reference to the Holocaust, seek to invest trauma with ethical valences and powers of legitimation or even, as in the case of Agamben, raise it to ontological status. Second, through his fine‐grained account of Freud's convergence with and divergence from his French colleagues, especially Charcot and Janet, Roth argues that the stunning breakthrough of psychoanalysis was to take the past seriously, to recognize the inevitable penetration of the past into the present in the human psyche as well our affective investment in and need to narrativize the past. For Roth, Freud's continued relevance today resides in what he has taught us about living with the past. Finally, Roth begins to develop the concept of “piety” as an attitude toward the past that fuels the writing of history. He leaves the concept in rudimentary form, but his evocative remarks suggest the fruitfulness of developing it further.