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This article presents outcomes from a Workshop entitled “Bioarchaeology: Taking Stock and Moving Forward, ” which was held at Arizona State University (ASU) on March 6–8, 2020. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the School of Human Evolution and Social Change (ASU), and the Center for Bioarchaeological Research (CBR, ASU), the Workshop's overall goal was to explore reasons why research proposals submitted by bioarchaeologists, both graduate students and established scholars, fared disproportionately poorly within recent NSF Anthropology Program competitions and to offer advice for increasing success. Therefore, this Workshop comprised 43 international scholars and four advanced graduate students with a history of successful grant acquisition, primarily from the United States. Ultimately, we focused on two related aims: (1) best practices for improving research designs and training and (2) evaluating topics of contemporary significance that reverberate through history and beyond as promising trajectories for bioarchaeological research. Among the former were contextual grounding, research question/hypothesis generation, statistical procedures appropriate for small samples and mixed qualitative/quantitative data, the salience of Bayesian methods, and training program content. Topical foci included ethics, social inequality, identity (including intersectionality), climate change, migration, violence, epidemic disease, adaptability/plasticity, the osteological paradox, and the developmental origins of health and disease. Given the profound changes required globally to address decolonization in the 21st century, this concern also entered many formal and informal discussions.

Around 10,000 y ago in southwest Asia, the cessation of a mobile lifestyle and the emergence of the first village communities during the Neolithic marked a fundamental change in human history. The first communities were small (tens to hundreds of individuals) but remained semisedentary. So-called megasites appeared soon after, occupied by thousands of more sedentary inhabitants. Accompanying this shift, the material culture and ancient ecological data indicate profound changes in economic and social behavior. A shift from residential to logistical mobility and increasing population size are clear and can be explained by either changes in fertility and/or aggregation of local groups. However, as sedentism increased, small early communities likely risked inbreeding without maintaining or establishing exogamous relationships typical of hunter-gatherers. Megasites, where large populations would have made endogamy sustainable, could have avoided this risk. To examine the role of kinship practices in the rise of megasites, we measured strontium and oxygen isotopes in tooth enamel from 99 individuals buried at Pınarbaşı, Boncuklu, and Çatalhöyük (Turkey) over 7,000 y. These sites are geographically proximate and, critically, span both early sedentary behaviors (Pınarbaşı and Boncuklu) and the rise of a local megasite (Çatalhöyük). Our data are consistent with the presence of only local individuals at Pınarbaşı and Boncuklu, whereas at Çatalhöyük, several nonlocals are present. The Çatalhöyük data stand in contrast to other megasites where bioarchaeological evidence has pointed to strict endogamy. These different kinship behaviors suggest that megasites may have arisen by employing unique, community-specific kinship practices.

Climate change is an indisputable threat to human health, especially for societies already confronted with rising social inequality, political and economic uncertainty, and a cascade of concurrent environmental challenges. Archaeological data about past climate and environment provide an important source of evidence about the potential challenges humans face and the long-term outcomes of alternative short-term adaptive strategies. Evidence from well-dated archaeological human skeletons and mummified remains speaks directly to patterns of human health over time through changing circumstances. Here, we describe variation in human epidemiological patterns in the context of past rapid climate change (RCC) events and other periods of past environmental change. Case studies confirm that human communities responded to environmental changes in diverse ways depending on historical, sociocultural, and biological contingencies. Certain factors, such as social inequality and disproportionate access to resources in large, complex societies may influence the probability of major sociopolitical disruptions and reorganizations—commonly known as “collapse.” This survey of Holocene human–environmental relations demonstrates how flexibility, variation, and maintenance of Indigenous knowledge can be mitigating factors in the face of environmental challenges. Although contemporary climate change is more rapid and of greater magnitude than the RCC events and other environmental changes we discuss here, these lessons from the past provide clarity about potential priorities for equitable, sustainable development and the constraints of modernity we must address.

Analysis of human remains and a copper band found in the center of a Late Archaic (ca. 5000–3000 cal BP) shell ring demonstrate an exchange network between the Great Lakes and the coastal southeast United States. Similarities in mortuary practices suggest that the movement of objects between these two regions was more direct and unmediated than archaeologists previously assumed based on “down-the-line” models of exchange. These findings challenge prevalent notions that view preagricultural Native American communities as relatively isolated from one another and suggest instead that wide social networks spanned much of North America thousands of years before the advent of domestication.

Summary The social organization of the first fully sedentary societies that emerged during the Neolithic period in Southwest Asia remains enigmatic,1 mainly because material culture studies provide limited insight into this issue. However, because Neolithic Anatolian communities often buried their dead beneath domestic buildings,2 household composition and social structure can be studied through these human remains. Here, we describe genetic relatedness among co-burials associated with domestic buildings in Neolithic Anatolia using 59 ancient genomes, including 22 new genomes from Aşıklı Höyük and Çatalhöyük. We infer pedigree relationships by simultaneously analyzing multiple types of information, including autosomal and X chromosome kinship coefficients, maternal markers, and radiocarbon dating. In two early Neolithic villages dating to the 9th and 8th millennia BCE, Aşıklı Höyük and Boncuklu, we discover that siblings and parent-offspring pairings were frequent within domestic structures, which provides the first direct indication of close genetic relationships among co-burials. In contrast, in the 7th millennium BCE sites of Çatalhöyük and Barcın, where we study subadults interred within and around houses, we find close genetic relatives to be rare. Hence, genetic relatedness may not have played a major role in the choice of burial location at these latter two sites, at least for subadults. This supports the hypothesis that in Çatalhöyük,3, 4, 5 and possibly in some other Neolithic communities, domestic structures may have served as burial location for social units incorporating biologically unrelated individuals. Our results underscore the diversity of kin structures in Neolithic communities during this important phase of sociocultural development., Highlights • Genetic kinship estimated from co-buried individuals’ genomes in Neolithic Anatolia • Close relatives are common among co-burials in Aşıklı and Boncuklu • Many unrelated infants found buried in the same building in Çatalhöyük and Barcın • Neolithic societies in Southwest Asia may have held diverse concepts of kinship, Yaka et al. use ancient genomes from Neolithic Anatolia and present evidence for diverse concepts of social kinship in Neolithic societies. In some communities, like Çatalhöyük, many genetically unrelated infants were buried together inside the same buildings, whereas in other sites, people buried together were frequently close biological kin.

This study examines internal enamel micro-defects and incremental isotopic data from tooth dentin to reconstruct early life stress and dietary histories of native individuals interred at Mission Santa Catalina de Guale (ca. A.D. 1605–1680), St. Catherines Island, Georgia. Spanish missionization in North America is associated with dietary change and increased indigenous stress. By integrating incremental isotopic data with enamel defect records, malnutrition as a source of stress can be explored. One permanent canine from 14 individuals was analyzed for enamel defects, and, of these subsamples, seven were selected for incremental δ 13C and δ 15N analysis. Results reveal high levels of early life stress, with 93% of individuals exhibiting enamel defects and an average of 4.4 defects/individual. Stress chronologies show that individuals experienced the highest frequency of stress between ages 2.5 and 4.5 years, a period associated with weaning in many traditional societies. Post-weaning δ 15N and δ 13C values indicate a mixed diet of maize and marine foods, with values closer to what would be expected for a diet heavy in maize (9.9‰ and –11.4‰, respectively). In four individuals, δ 15N values decrease on average 2‰ during infancy and early childhood, while δ 13C values slightly increase by 0.7‰. These individuals show enamel defects associated with decreasing δ 15N and increasing δ 13C values, suggesting stress associated with weaning onto a maize-based diet. This study underscores the importance of combining isotopic and paleopathological data to explore sources of non-specific stresses, especially in providing a link between diet and nutritional stress during periods of growth and development. Este estudio examina los microdefectos internos del esmalte y los datos isotopicos incrementales de la dentina para reconstruir el estres de la vida temprana y las historias dieteticas de individuos indigenas enterrados en la Mision Santa Catalina de Guale (entre los anos 1605 y 1680), en St. Catherines Island, Georgia. La misionizacion espanola en America del Norte esta asociada con el cambio en la dieta y el aumento del estres sistemico en poblaciones indigenas. Se puede abordar la desnutricion como fuente de estres sistemico al integrar los datos isotopicos incrementales con los registros de defectos del esmalte. Se analizo un canino permanente de catorce individuos para identificar defectos en el esmalte y se seleccionaron siete submuestras para el analisis incremental de δ 13C y δ 15N. Los resultados revelan altos niveles de estres en la vida temprana ya que un 93% de individuos muestran defectos en el esmalte con un promedio de 4,4 defectos/individuo. Las cronologias de estres muestran que las personas experimentaron la mayor frecuencia de estres entre los 2,5 y 4,5 anos de edad, un periodo asociado con el destete en muchas sociedades tradicionales. Los valores δ 15N y δ 13C posteriores al destete indican una dieta mixta de maiz y alimentos marinos, con valores mas cercanos a lo que se espera de una dieta rica en maiz (9,9 ‰ y –11,4 ‰, respectivamente). En cuatro individuos, los valores de δ 15N disminuyen en promedio 2 ‰ y los valores de δ 13C aumentan gradualmente un promedio de 0,7 ‰ durante la infancia y la ninez temprana. Estos individuos muestran defectos del esmalte asociados con la disminucion de δ 15N y el aumento de los valores de δ 13C, lo que sugiere el estres asociado con el destete y una transicion hacia una dieta basada en maiz. Este estudio subraya la importancia de combinar los datos isotopicos y paleopatologicos para explorar las fuentes del estres sistemico, especialmente al proporcionar un vinculo entre la dieta y el estres nutricional durante los periodos de crecimiento y desarrollo.

Beginning some 10,000 years ago, humans began a dramatic alteration in living conditions relating especially to the shift in lifeway from foraging to farming. In addition to the initiation of and increasing focus on the production and consumption of domesticated plant carbohydrates, this revolutionary transformation in diet occasioned a decline in mobility and an increased size and agglomeration of populations in semipermanent or permanent settlements. These changes in life conditions presented an opportunity for increased transmission of pathogenic microbes from host to host, such as those that cause major health threats affecting most of the 7.5 billion members of our species today. This article discusses the bioarchaeology of infectious disease, focusing on tuberculosis, treponematosis, dental caries, and periodontitis, all of which continue to contribute to high levels of morbidity and mortality among the world's populations today.

OBJECTIVES The transition from foraging to farming is usually associated with unprecedented population densities coupled with an increase in fertility and population growth. However, little is known about the biological effects of such demographic changes during the Neolithic. In the present work, we test the relationship between diachronic changes in population size, relative exposure to developmental stressors, and patterns of dental fluctuating asymmetry in the Neolithic population of Catalhoyuk (Turkey, 7,100-5,950 cal BC). MATERIALS AND METHODS We calculate fluctuating asymmetry of mesio-distal and bucco-lingual diameters of upper and lower permanent canines and first and second molars on a large (N = 259) sample representing adults of both sexes and various age classes. RESULTS Results show only a moderate decrease of fluctuating asymmetry during the late phase of occupation of the site, possibly linked to a decrease in population density, and no differences in asymmetry between sexes. DISCUSSION Though preliminary, our data reflect the presence of developmental stressors throughout the occupation of the site, albeit with a slight improvement in living conditions during the latest periods of occupation. At the same time, these data confirm the key role of diet as buffer against the detrimental effects of fluctuating demographic pressures on the biology of prehistoric human populations.