Archaeological Perspectives toward Medicine and Global Health

With recent outbreaks of infectious diseases such as Ebola and Zika and rising rates of chronic disease such as asthma and obesity worldwide, there has been a growing awareness of the urgency to develop novel approaches to public health and the investigation of disease. As biomedical and genomic research generate new data, knowledge, and methods of treatment, many questions remain about the evolution, proliferation and history of a number of conditions of global health concern. Archaeology, as both a methodological approach and an analytical framework, has a unique potential to contribute to these efforts. In particular, collaborations with the biological and ecological sciences can produce a finer-grained narrative of how specific diseases and health conditions proliferated in the past, and the ways in which humans have responded to these issues. When combined with social theory and history, these approaches offer a historical perspective that can inform preventative and treatment strategies for the future. This session aims to showcase archaeological research into issues related to global health and medicine to date, and to offer a creative space for archaeologists to shape discourse that will drive future investigations.