The Bioarchaeology of Urbanization / Bioarchaeology and Social Theory (PDF)

Tracy K. Betsinger is Associate Professor of Anthropology at SUNY-Oneonta. She specializes in bioarchaeology, paleopathology, and mortuary archaeology. Her research focuses on examining the impacts of age, gender, social status, settlement patterns, and social identity and personhood on various aspects of health including disease, diet, stress, and trauma. She has worked extensively with medieval and post-medieval Polish skeletal remains as well as remains from the American Southeast. She recently co-edited two volumes: The Anthropology of the Fetus: Biology, Culture, and Society and The Odd, the Unusual, and the Strange: Bioarchaeological Explorations of Atypical Burials.

Sharon N. DeWitte is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. She specializes in bioarchaeology, paleodemography, and paleoepidemiology. She is particularly interested in the evolution, ecology, epidemiology, and the consequences of disease in past populations and the ways in which such research informs our understanding of disease in living populations. For over 15 years, her research has primarily focused on trends in health and demography before, during, and after the 14th-century Black Death in England. She is currently on the editorial board of Evolutionary Anthropology.