Medicine and Healing in the Americas: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Perspectives
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)
This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Medicine and Healing in the Americas: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Perspectives," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
Ancient medicine and healing is a robust field of study which, in many parts of the world, combines archaeological data with the analysis of ancient texts from contemporaneous periods. In the Americas, however, archaeologists often rely on the work of ethnohistorians, ethnographers, and colonial historians to interpret archaeological data related to medicine and healing. The aim of this session is to foster a dialogue among archaeologists and ethnohistorians who study diseases, healing, and medical care in past societies. It is our hope that such discussion will reinforce the mutually beneficial potential of archaeological and ethnohistorical collaboration on the topic of ancient medicine. Topics of interest include the relationship between the healer and the healed, the material culture of healing and its interface with the human body, the etiology of disease and sickness, and indigenous cosmologies and perspectives on healing and medicine. This multi-regional and interdisciplinary session will also critically appraise the multiple meanings attributed to "healing" at both macro and micro social scales. Although Pre-Columbian and historic periods in the Americas are the primary focus, the diversity of perspectives, methods, and theories applied here impacts understandings of illness, its treatment, the human body, and healing-based practices across the globe.
Other Keywords
Medicine •
Indigenous •
Ethnohistory/History •
Ethnography/Ethnoarchaeology •
History Of Archaeology •
Paleoethnobotany •
Historic •
Ancestral Pueblo •
disability •
Maya: Classic
Geographic Keywords
North America (Continent) •
New Mexico (State / Territory) •
Oklahoma (State / Territory) •
Arizona (State / Territory) •
Texas (State / Territory) •
Sonora (State / Territory) •
United States of America (Country) •
Chihuahua (State / Territory) •
Colorado (State / Territory) •
Utah (State / Territory)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-6 of 6)
- Documents (6)
-
Born This Way, Becoming That Way: Difference, Disability and Sickness in Inka Society (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Medicine and Healing in the Americas: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Perspectives" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Inkas’ social constructions of physical difference recognized ‘disability’ as a permanent state of being, one that Guaman Poma de Ayala suggested was considered a specific calle or passage of life. Unlike much of the contemporary Late Middle Ages of Christian Europe, such individuals were not...
-
Health Care in the Marketplace: Exploring Medicinal Plants and Practices at Piedras Negras (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Medicine and Healing in the Americas: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Perspectives" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Botanical residues recovered from the proposed marketplace area of Piedras Negras have revealed rich information about healing and medicinal activities of Classic Period inhabitants. Excavations in this sector yielded a high quantity of identifiable plant remains in the same contexts as human dental...
-
Medicinal Plant Use in Southeast New Mexico: Botanical, Ethnobotanical and Archaeological Evidence (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Medicine and Healing in the Americas: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Perspectives" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Medicinal Plant use for Southeastern New Mexico is presented, covering major plant types, uses, and ecology. In collaboration with a botanist, who specializes in New Mexico flora, we present data on 331 plant species. The process of knowledge production will be addressed, as all of this information is...
-
Patients and Practitioners: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Approaches to Ancient Medicine and Healing Practices in the Americas (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Medicine and Healing in the Americas: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Perspectives" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Medicine, health care, and healing comprise a sub-set of cultural practices that are under-represented in archaeological work in the Americas. In other parts of the world, rich textual traditions consisting of medical treatises or surgical manuals combined with archaeological evidence in the form of...
-
We Know Who We Are and What Is Needed: Achieving Healing, Harmony and Balance in Ndee Institutions (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Medicine and Healing in the Americas: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Perspectives" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ndee perceptions of the past bear directly on the present. Our institutions—lifeways, worldviews and overall continued well-being—are contingent upon our relationship to the land in the form of access, prayer, offerings, power acquisition and overall reciprocity. Intergenerational, ecological and...
-
When Is Healing?: An Archaeological Case Study of the Chacoan and Post-Chacoan American Southwest (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Medicine and Healing in the Americas: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Perspectives" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For the Ancestral Puebloans, Chaco Canyon (ca. AD 800-1180), in what is now northern New Mexico, brought disparate communities together under a common cultural system by adjoining religious ceremonies, pilgrimages, and exotic goods with astronomical events, striking topographical features, and other...