THE ARCHAEOREADER
WHERE A LOVE OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND READING MEET
WHERE A LOVE OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND READING MEET
"...what we think of when we envision the human past is partly a myth that tells more about where we think we're going wrong with our own lives today than anything that happened thousands and thousands of years ago...But what we're interested in here isn't just a takedown of some ridiculous celebrity-fueled diet or fashion trend [i.e. the paleodiet]. What we want to know is: what happened to Spear Guy and Raquel? Why did they decide to give up the big savanna and start spending their time over at the river's edge, swapping a never-ending horizon for the manageable commute associated with settled life? And what did that decision do to his leg muscles or her baby-juggling skills. Because we can look at the couple eating fast food in their car in a nameless city, success stories and paragons of human achievement in terms of the race to urban living that has characterized the last 15,000 or so years of human history, and we can look at the legions and legions of our ancestors who died along the way to that fast food parking lot, and see, locked away in the cells and structures of bones and teeth and hair and skin, that we haven't just built cities. Cities have built us."---Brenna Hassett If you read the (admittedly, excessively long BUT totally necessary!) quote above and, like me, it left you wanting more, then Research Associate and bioarchaeologist Dr. Brenna Hassett's Built on Bones: 15,000 Years of Urban Life and Death is for you! The 2nd read off TheArchaeoReader TBR, is one helluva nonfiction, popular science, book on the development of cities and how, not only have we shaped them but how cities have shaped us. I absolutely loved the way Hassett balanced a dense topic with wit and humor. From her catchy, oft musically-theme titled, chapters like 'Papa Was A Rolling Stone' (Chapter 1), 'What's New Pussycat?' (Chapter 3), and 'Under Pressure' (Chapter 9)--incidentally publisher, Bloomsbury has actually made a Spotify playlist, and though it hasn't included any of the songs the chapter names are taken from, I may or may not be listening to it while I work on this post--to her jocular voice (many of her footnotes are hilarious), Hassett certainly keeps your interest peaked. Within two pages I could tell this was going to be a great archaeology read. Right out the gate, Built on Bones takes on our 'paleo-fantasies' of humankind's first family and the popular lifestyle trend that gives every archaeologist and anthropologist heartburn: the Paleo Diet. I'll spare you my own rant on how absurd the Paleo Diet is, as any kind of representation of what our pre-agricultural ancestors were eating, in lieu of Dr. Christina Warriner's well-known 2012 TED talk. Which is far more eloquent than I could be on the subject. Personally, if I had to promote a diet that considered our early hominid ancestors it would be Michael Pollen's Cooked. Have you seen the Netflix special?! So good. But I digress and as Hassett says above, her book isn't just about debunking myths. Bone by bone, tooth, and even historical documents, a fascinating discussion on the Neolithic Revolution, human migration and plant and animal domestication, what bioarchaeology, genetics, and Ancient DNA (aka aDNA) can tell us about violence and inequality, and our responses to infectious disease, all unfolds to answer her questions: why cities have been built the way they have, and what this has done to human populations.
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