Clark Spencer Larsen
Biographic Data
| ID | 79229 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Clark Spencer Larsen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Clark Spencer |
| FAMILY NAME | Larsen |
| SIGNATURE | LARSEN C S |
| AFFILIATIONS | The Ohio State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6905-8417 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 83 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1375 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 81 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1973 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 21 |
A Companion to Biological Anthropology
A Companion to Biological Anthropology The discipline of biological anthropology—the study of the variation and evolution of human beings and their evolutionary relationships with past and living hominin and primate relatives—has undergone enormous growth in recent years. Advances in DNA research, behavioral anthropology, nutrition science, and other fields are transforming our understanding of what makes us human. A Companion to Biological Anthr…
Twenty-first century bioarchaeology
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 g…
Demographic transitions, health, and population crises in the postcontact Western Hemisphere
Foraging to Farming Transition
Bioarchaeology
Skeletons in Our Closet
Great Lakes Copper and Shared Mortuary Practices on the Atlantic Coast
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…
Early Life Stress at Mission Santa Catalina de Guale
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, m…
Population density and developmental stress in the Neolithic
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 fluctuati…
Bioarchaeology in perspective
At no other time in either the history of physical anthropology or its flagship journal, the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, has there been such strong interest in the central role that human remains from archaeological settings play in developing an understanding of the remarkably dynamic last 10,000 years of the history, evolution, and contextual circumstances surrounding the human condition. Over the course of my association with bi…
The Bioarchaeology of Health Crisis
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 settle…
Health and the Little Ice Age in Southeastern Germany and Alpine Austria
Climate change has diverse effects on populations depending on their local contexts. This paper examines bioarchaeological samples from central Europe to elucidate the impacts of the Little Ice Age (LIA) on populations living in non-marginal environments. Frequency and severity of multiple skeletal indicators (linear enamel hypoplasia [LEH], cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis, and lower limb osteoperiostitis) are assessed from four German …
Subsisting at the Pleistocene/Holocene Boundary in the New World
Subsistence of the first inhabitants of the New World has been largely debated among researchers interested in past lifeways. In this article, we focus on the subsistence of these early inhabitants using skeletal material excavated at Lagoa Santa, central Brazil. To contextualize these data, we provide a thorough review of Paleoamerican diet, discussing the big-game hunting hypothesis in light of botanical and zooarchaeological data from North an…
Dietary Transition in Late Holocene Eastern North America
This chapter presents an overview of the record of reconstructing and interpreting diet from the study of craniofacial morphology and teeth, especially as the orofacial record pertains to masticatory function, nutritional quality, and health. This record is an essential element of the study of diet as it is represented in the archaeological past. Analysis of the orofacial skeleton from eastern North America reveals temporal trends relating to or …
A bioarchaeological and forensic re-assessment of vulture defleshing and mortuary practices at Neolithic Çatalhöyük
Mother City and Colony
This study uses bioarchaeological methods and interpretive frameworks, in conjunction with archaeological and textual evidence, to document and interpret the record of Greek colonial interactions between Corinth and local populations at Apollonia, Albania, in the region known as Illyria (modern Albania). A series of Illyrian human remains (n = 304; Early Iron Age-Hellenistic periods) and Corinthian human remains (n = 72; Neolithic-Hellenistic per…
Bioarchaeology
Bioarchaeology
Now including numerous full colour figures, this updated and revised edition of Larsen's classic text provides a comprehensive overview of the fundamentals of bioarchaeology. Reflecting the enormous advances made in the field over the past twenty years, the author examines how this discipline has matured and evolved in fundamental ways. Jargon free and richly illustrated, the text is accompanied by copious case studies and references to underscor…
Bioarchaeological Studies of Life in the Age of Agriculture
Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis at Neolithic Çatalhöyük
Bioarchaeology of Neolithic Çatalhöyük
Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis and dietary reconstruction through the life course at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey
Food has long served as a mechanism for identifying and reinforcing social structures, but while carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis has provided important identity-based evidence of past diets, the cyclical and stable/fluid nature of food consumption practices across the life course has been relatively neglected. In this paper, the large human assemblage at Çatalhöyük with all age groups present has enabled diet reconstruction of the rarely rep…
Oral health of the Paleoamericans of Lagoa Santa, central Brazil
The peopling, origins, and early prehistory of the Americas are topics of intense debate. However, few studies have used human remains to document and interpret patterns of health and lifestyle of Paleoamericans. This study provides the first investigation to characterize oral health in a series of early Holocene skeletal remains from Lagoa Santa, Brazil, a locality containing the remains of some of the earliest inhabitants of South America (10,0…
Exploring the multidimensionality of stature variation in the past through comparisons of archaeological and living populations
Adult stature variation is commonly attributed to differential stress‐levels during development. However, due to selective mortality and heterogeneous frailty, a population's tall stature may be more indicative of high selective pressures than of positive life conditions. This article examines stature in a biocultural context and draws parallels between bioarchaeological and living populations to explore the multidimensionality of stature variati…
Evidence for long‐term migration on the Balkan Peninsula using dental and cranial nonmetric data
This article seeks to identify “Greeks” and “non‐Greeks” in “mixed” mortuary contexts in a Greek colony. Specifically, we test the hypothesis that Illyrian and Greek individuals lived and were buried together at the Corinthian colony of Apollonia, Albania (established ca. 600 BC). The pattern of human biological interaction at Apollonia is tested by identifying variation in genetic relatedness using biodistance analysis of dental and cranial nonm…
Postcranial robusticity in Homo . I
Temporal trends in postcranial robusticity within the genus Homo are explored by comparing cross‐sectional diaphyseal and articular properties of the femur, and to a more limited extent, the humerus, in samples of Recent and earlier Homo . Using both theoretical mechanical models and empirical observations within Recent humans, scaling relationships between structural properties and bone length are developed. The influence of body shape on these …
Biological Changes in Human Populations with Agriculture
Agriculture has long been regarded as an improvement in the human condition: Once Homo sapiens made the transition from foraging to farming in the Neolithic, health and nutrition improved, longevity increased, and work load declined. Recent study of archaeological human remains worldwide by biological anthropologists has shown this characterization of the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture to be incorrect. Contrary to earlier models,…
Structural changes in the femur with the transition to agriculture on the Georgia coast
Structural characteristics of the femur are compared in preagricultural (2200 B.C.–A.D. 1150) and agricultural (A.D. 1150–1550) subsistence strategy groups from the Georgia coast. Using an automated technique, cross‐sectional geometric properties used in structural analyses (areas, second moments of area) were determined at midshaft and distal to the lesser trochanter in 20 adults from each group. A significant decline in magnitude of almost ever…
Frontiers of Contact
Bioarchaeology
Economic intensification and degenerative joint disease
This study tests the hypothesis that the colonial economy of the Lambayeque region of northern coastal Peru was associated with a mechanically strenuous lifestyle among the indigenous Mochica population. To test the hypothesis, we documented the changes in the prevalence of degenerative joint disease (or DJD) in human remains from the late pre‐Hispanic and colonial Lambayeque Valley Complex. Comparisons were made using multivariate odds ratios ca…
Dental modifications and tool use in the western Great Basin
Nondietary function is an important concern in the study of the human dentition and its role in adaptation. The purpose of the present investigation is to describe and interpret a pattern of dental wear in the anterior dentition of precontact hunter‐gatherers that inhabited the western Great Basin. These data are discussed in light of ethnographic documentation as a means by which the archaeological record is linked with associated behavior of th…
Exploring the multidimensionality of stature variation in the past through comparisons of archaeological and living populations
Adult stature variation is commonly attributed to differential stress‐levels during development. However, due to selective mortality and heterogeneous frailty, a population's tall stature may be more indicative of high selective pressures than of positive life conditions. This article examines stature in a biocultural context and draws parallels between bioarchaeological and living populations to explore the multidimensionality of stature variati…
Bioarchaeology
Variation in limb proportions between Jomon foragers and Yayoi agriculturalists from prehistoric Japan
Variation in limb proportions between prehistoric Jomon and Yayoi people of Japan are explored by this study. Jomon people were the descendents of Pleistocene nomads who migrated to the Japanese Islands around 30,000 yBP. Phenotypic and genotypic evidence indicates that Yayoi people were recent migrants to Japan from continental Northeast Asia who likely interbred with Jomon foragers. Limb proportions of Jomon and Yayoi people were compared using…
Dental caries prevalence as evidence for agriculture and subsistence variation during the Yayoi period in prehistoric Japan
The Yayoi period represents the earliest point of agricultural dependence in Japan, dating from ∼2500 BP to AD 300. Yayoi period people consumed wet‐rice as a primary subsistence base. This article uses dental caries prevalence to interpret the biocultural implications of agriculture among these people by testing the following hypotheses: 1) Yayoi period agriculturalists had greater frequencies of carious teeth than Jomon period foragers, 2) regi…
Official” and “practical” kin
The Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük, Turkey (7400–5600 cal BC) is widely acknowledged for its role in the study of early farming communities. To better understand the social and community structure of this setting, an intracemetery biological distance analysis was conducted. Metric and nonmetric observations were recorded in both deciduous and permanent dentitions ( n = 266) to explore phenotypic patterning of individuals interred within individual …
Skeletal and Dental Adaptations to the Shift to Agriculture on the Georgia Coast
Bioarchaeology of Neolithic Çatalhöyük
Skeletal biology over the life span
The biocultural interpretation of skeletal remains is based upon the foundation of skeletal biology. In this review we examine the current state of skeletal biology research outside of the mainstream anthropology literature. The focus is on the structural changes of bone development and growth, and modeling and repair in the four bone surfaces: periosteal, Haversian, endosteal, and trabecular. The pattern of skeletal changes is placed within the …
Skeletal health in the Western Hemisphere from 4000 B.C. to the present
Carbon and nitrogen stable isotopic signatures of human dietary change in the Georgia Bight
Measurement of carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios (δ 13 C and δ 15 N) in samples of human bone collagen (n = 93) from a temporal series of four prehistoric (early preagricultural, late preagricultural, early agricultural, late agricultural) and two historic (early contact, late contact) periods from the Georgia Bight, a continental embayment on the southeastern U.S. Atlantic coast, reveals a general temporal trend for less negative δ 13 C …
The Archaeology of Mission Santa Catalina de Guale
Oral health of the Paleoamericans of Lagoa Santa, central Brazil
The peopling, origins, and early prehistory of the Americas are topics of intense debate. However, few studies have used human remains to document and interpret patterns of health and lifestyle of Paleoamericans. This study provides the first investigation to characterize oral health in a series of early Holocene skeletal remains from Lagoa Santa, Brazil, a locality containing the remains of some of the earliest inhabitants of South America (10,0…
In the wake of Columbus
The commemoration of the Columbian quincentenary played an important role in stimulating new research on the biological effects of the arrival of Europeans on Native American groups throughout the New World. Although these discussions have involved many disciplines, physical anthropology has been underrepresented until recently. This article reviews a range of studies on the biological impact of European colonization of the Americas on native pop…
Twenty-first century bioarchaeology
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 g…
Behavioural implications of temporal change in cariogenesis
Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis at Neolithic Çatalhöyük
Basics in paleodemography
Recent advances in the methods of skeletal age estimation have rekindled interest in their applicability to paleodemography. The current study contributes to the discussion by applying several long established as well as recently developed or refined aging methods to a subsample of 121 adult skeletons from the early medieval cemetery of Lauchheim. The skeletal remains were analyzed by 13 independent observers using a variety of aging techniques (…
Regional Variation in the Pattern of Maize Adoption and Use in Florida and Georgia
Dietary reconstruction using carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes from archaeological human bone samples from coastal Georgia and northern and Gulf Coast Florida dating between 400 B.C. and A.D. 1700 serves to illustrate the complexity of the agricultural transition in that region. Isotope analysis of 185 collagen samples drawn from early prehistoric, late prehistoric, and contact-period mortuary sites encompasses two major adaptive shifts in the …
The Elliott Site (14Ge303)
Initial work at the Elliott site, Geary County, Kansas, reveals three cultural components: Archaic (Munkers Creek?), Woodland, and Smoky Hill, spatially distributed over the site in five clusters. The Woodland cluster (14GE312) was tested and is reported here. The data suggest a tentative Schultz focus affiliation
Functional implications of postcranial size reduction on the prehistoric Georgia coast, U.S.A
Skeletal and Dental Adaptations to the Shift to Agriculture on the Georgia Coast
Behavioural implications of temporal change in cariogenesis
Deciduous Tooth Size and Subsistence Change in Prehistoric Georgia Coast Populations
Structural changes in the femur with the transition to agriculture on the Georgia coast
Structural characteristics of the femur are compared in preagricultural (2200 B.C.–A.D. 1150) and agricultural (A.D. 1150–1550) subsistence strategy groups from the Georgia coast. Using an automated technique, cross‐sectional geometric properties used in structural analyses (areas, second moments of area) were determined at midshaft and distal to the lesser trochanter in 20 adults from each group. A significant decline in magnitude of almost ever…
Dental modifications and tool use in the western Great Basin
Nondietary function is an important concern in the study of the human dentition and its role in adaptation. The purpose of the present investigation is to describe and interpret a pattern of dental wear in the anterior dentition of precontact hunter‐gatherers that inhabited the western Great Basin. These data are discussed in light of ethnographic documentation as a means by which the archaeological record is linked with associated behavior of th…
Bioarchaeological Interpretations of Subsistence Economy and Behavior from Human Skeletal Remains
Gone to a Better Land
Archeology
Prehistory and Human Ecology of the Valley of Oaxaca, Volume 9
Health and the Rise of Civilization. Mark Nathan Cohen
Carbon and nitrogen stable isotopic signatures of human dietary change in the Georgia Bight
Measurement of carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios (δ 13 C and δ 15 N) in samples of human bone collagen (n = 93) from a temporal series of four prehistoric (early preagricultural, late preagricultural, early agricultural, late agricultural) and two historic (early contact, late contact) periods from the Georgia Bight, a continental embayment on the southeastern U.S. Atlantic coast, reveals a general temporal trend for less negative δ 13 C …
The Archaeology of Mission Santa Catalina de Guale
Postcranial robusticity in Homo . I
Temporal trends in postcranial robusticity within the genus Homo are explored by comparing cross‐sectional diaphyseal and articular properties of the femur, and to a more limited extent, the humerus, in samples of Recent and earlier Homo . Using both theoretical mechanical models and empirical observations within Recent humans, scaling relationships between structural properties and bone length are developed. The influence of body shape on these …
In the wake of Columbus
The commemoration of the Columbian quincentenary played an important role in stimulating new research on the biological effects of the arrival of Europeans on Native American groups throughout the New World. Although these discussions have involved many disciplines, physical anthropology has been underrepresented until recently. This article reviews a range of studies on the biological impact of European colonization of the Americas on native pop…
Elemental signatures of human diets from the Georgia Bight
Multielement analysis was performed on bone samples extracted from the femora of 39 adults from three mortuary sites (Johns Mound, Santa Catalina de Guale, and Santa Catalina de Guale de Santa Meria) and time periods (late preagricultural, early contact, and late contact) in the Georgia Bight. This study was used to investigate whether elemental analysis would support or contradict other lines of data regarding diets and dietary change previously…
Biological Changes in Human Populations with Agriculture
Agriculture has long been regarded as an improvement in the human condition: Once Homo sapiens made the transition from foraging to farming in the Neolithic, health and nutrition improved, longevity increased, and work load declined. Recent study of archaeological human remains worldwide by biological anthropologists has shown this characterization of the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture to be incorrect. Contrary to earlier models,…
Death by gunshot
Contrary to the popular myth known as the Black Legend, very little evidence of traumatic injury and death of Native Americans at the hands of Spaniards in the southeastern USA has been uncovered in the archaeological record. This paper reports on the circumstances of death of an individual from Mission San Luis de Talimali (AD 1656-1704), located in northern Florida. A determination of biological affinity of the victim is not possible based on c…
Bioarchaeology
Human remains recovered from archaeological sites can help us interpret lifetime events such as disease, physiological stress, injury and violent death, physical activity, tooth use, diet and demographic history of once-living populations. This is the first comprehensive synthesis of the emerging field of bioarchaeology. A central theme is the interaction between biology and behaviour, underscoring the dynamic nature of skeletal and dental tissue…
Stressed to the Max? Physiological Perturbation in the Krapina Neandertals
Regional Variation in the Pattern of Maize Adoption and Use in Florida and Georgia
Dietary reconstruction using carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes from archaeological human bone samples from coastal Georgia and northern and Gulf Coast Florida dating between 400 B.C. and A.D. 1700 serves to illustrate the complexity of the agricultural transition in that region. Isotope analysis of 185 collagen samples drawn from early prehistoric, late prehistoric, and contact-period mortuary sites encompasses two major adaptive shifts in the …
Organizing scientific meetings
Bioarchaeology
A view on the science
EDITOR'S NOTE The year 2000 marks the onset of the 21st century. In this transistional year, prominent physical anthropologists will provide brief reflections on our discipline, including what attracted them to it, and their views on the directions our discipline may pursue as we enter, in January 2001, the third millennium. Am J Phys Anthropol 111:1–4, 2000. © 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Geography (51 works) · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies (49 works) · Archaeology (46 works) · Biology (36 works) · Sociology (36 works) · History (32 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (23 works) · Anthropology (21 works) · Paleopathology and ancient diseases (21 works) · Medicine (19 works)