Built on Bones

Imagine you are a hunter-gatherer some 15,000 years ago. You've got a choice - carry on foraging, or plant a few seeds and move to one of those new-fangled settlements down the valley. What you won't know is that urban life is short and riddled with dozens of new diseases; your children will be shorter and sicklier than you are, they'll be plagued with gum disease, and stand a decent chance of a violent death at the point of a spear.Why would anyone choose this? This is one of the many intriguing questions tackled by Brenna Hassett in . Using research on skeletal remains from around the world, this book explores the history of humanity's experiment with the metropolis, and looks at why our ancestors chose city life, and why they have largely stuck to it. It explains the diseases, the deaths and the many other misadventures that we have unwittingly unleashed upon ourselves throughout the metropolitan past, and as the world becomes increasingly urbanised, what we can look forward to in the future.Telling the tale of shifts in human growth and health that have occurred as we transitioned from a mobile to a largely settled species. Built on Bones offers an accessible insight into a critical but relatively unheralded aspect of the human story: our recent evolution.

This book explores how our journey from hunter-gatherers to urban dwellers has impacted our state of health. Using clues recovered from archaeological sites and ancient skeletal remains, it carefully highlights some of the unpleasant consequences of urbanisation.

Préface
The city has killed most of your ancestors, and it's probably killing you, too - this book tells you why

Auteur

Brenna Hassett

Texte du rabat

Humans and their immediate ancestors were successful hunter-gatherers for hundreds of thousands of years, but in the last fifteen thousand years humans have gone from finding food to farming it, from seasonal camps to sprawling cities, from a few people to hordes. Drawing on her own fieldwork in the Mediterranean, Africa, Asia, and beyond, archeologist Brenna Hassett explores the long history of urbanization through revolutionary changes written into the bones of the people who lived it.

For every major new lifestyle, another way of dying appeared. From the "cradle of civilization" in the ancient Near East to the dawn of agriculture on the American plains, skeletal remains and fossils show evidence of shorter lives, rotten teeth, and growth interrupted. The scarring on human skeletons reveals that getting too close to animals had some terrible consequences, but so did getting too close to too many other people.

Each chapter of Built on Bones moves forward in time, discussing in depth humanity's great urban experiment. Hassett explains the diseases, plagues, epidemics, and physical dangers we have unwittingly unleashed upon ourselves throughout the urban past--and, as the world becomes increasingly urbanized, what the future holds for us. In a time when "Paleo" lifestyles are trendy and so many of us feel the pain of the city daily grind, this book asks the critical question: Was it worth it?

Contenu
Introduction: Nothing (but Flowers) Chapter 1: Papa Was a Rolling Stone Chapter 2: Feed Me (Seymour) Chapter 3: What ' s New Pussycat? Chapter 4: Revolution Chapter 5: Power of Equality Chapter 6: Oops Upside Your Head Chapter 7: Under My Thumb Chapter 8: War! What Is It Good For? Chapter 9: Under Pressure Chapter 10: Bring Out Your Dead Chapter 11: Tainted Love Chapter 12: Take This Job and Shove It Chapter 13: Panic ... Conclusion: Karma Police Acknowledgements: Some of My Friends Index