Systems of Care in Times of Violence

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Systems of Care in Times of Violence," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Injury and impairment caused by non-lethal violence requires a different form of healthcare than disease. Cultures require different healthcare systems for aiding the recovery of individuals who suffered a non-lethal attack. Bioarchaeological analysis of ancient skeletal remains has demonstrated that past peoples can survive extreme trauma. Likewise, the Bioarchaeology of Care approach provides a systematic method for empirically testing the possibility of healthcare in the past. This session aims to explore how the Bioarchaeology of Care model can be applied to individuals who have survived non-lethal violence and what can be revealed about the healthcare provisioning systems that were integrated within lager political-economic spheres in past cultures. Papers in this session cover a range of topics and analyses, such as endemic raiding and warfare, female warriors, and cranial trauma. Examination of healthcare provisioning for individuals who suffered non-lethal violence provides a deeper understanding of the range of human violence and healthcare behaviors.