Health and Inequality in the Archaeological Record

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Health and Inequality in the Archaeological Record," at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

This session examines healthcare through the lens of material culture, with an emphasis on inequality and access to medical care in the past. Papers will investigate topics that include how does one’s race, age, sexuality, gender, and/or class standing enable or circumscribe the types of medical care people received; the history of medicine in different historical, geographical, and temporal contexts; and the mechanisms through which archaeologists can measure and assess an individual, family, or community’s well-being and access to healthcare.