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School of Archaeology and Anthropology · ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences
See https://www.anu.edu.au/covid-19-advice. This course includes on campus/in person activities that cannot be adjusted for remote participants. The content in this course is grounded in the fields of bioarchaeology and palaeopathology. Students will learn how to interpret past human lifestyles, health and disease from skeletal remains that derive from archaeological contexts. We will examine a variety of topics that include: degenerative, infectious, and metabolic disease, oral health and disease, as well as physical activity, physiological stress, skeletal trauma, and cancer. The course centres around interactive in-class activities and practical lab work. Students will be trained in completing a differential diagnosis for a given skeletal abnormality. Emphasis is on the interactions between biology and behaviour and the influences of environment and culture. The multidisciplinary nature of reconstructing the lives of the dead is explored though the manner in which socio-cultural anthropology, archaeology, bioanthropology, chemistry, molecular biology, medicine and a host of other disciplines inform this research.
Skeletal Inventory
Learning outcomes 1
10-Minute Oral Presentation
Learning outcomes 2, 3, 4
Lesion Identification Report
Learning outcomes 1
Differential Diagnosis Report
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4
130 hours of total student learning time made up from: a) 36 hours of contact over 12 weeks: 24 hours of seminars and 12 hours of labs; and b) 94 hours of independent student research, reading and writing. Work Integrated Learning Simulation/Virtual Students spend the semester conducting data collection on diseases in human remains and complete a paleopathological assessment, simulating the activities they would do in a professional or research capacity while still in a learning environment.
Buikstra, J. E. (ed.) 2019. Ortner’s Identification of Pathological Conditions in Human Skeletal Remains. Third Edition. London: Academic Press. [Available as an eBook through the ANU Libraries].