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| photo: Lorna Tilley
In a piece in Science
Times last December (“Ancient Bones That Tell a Story of Compassion,” NYT
12/17/12), James Gorman describes the discipline of “bioarchaelogy.” By
studying the bones of ancient people, researchers determine both the ailments they suffered from and the kind of care they
received. Some of the findings would dispute the notion that ancient peoples
had a more primitive approach to health care than their contemporary
counterparts. Gorman describes the work of Lorna Tilley and Marc Oxenham of
Australian National University in Canberra in excavating the remains of “a
profoundly ill young man who lived 4,000 years ago in what is now northern
Vietnam.” From their analysis “they gathered that he became paralyzed from the
waist down before adolescence, the result of a congenital disease known as
Klippel-Feil Syndrome. He had little, if any use of his arms and could not
have fed himself or kept himself clean. But he lived another l0 years or so.” In
classic mythology seers prophecy the future, but what is miraculous about the
work that Oxenham and Tilley have done relates to how much they can tell us
about the past. The remains of the young
man, who was identified as Burial 9, not only tell us about his condition, but
of the mores of the culture he lived in. Describing Tilley’s work Gorman
remarks, “In the case of Burial 9, she says, not only does his care indicated
tolerance and cooperation in his
culture, but suggests that he himself had a sense of his own worth and a strong
will to live.” Medicine is making it possible to increase longevity, but older
people are increasingly looked at as physical and economic burdens, whose
extended life spans drain the energy and resources of the children they
have brought into the world. Loneliness and isolation are two ailments for
which even the most modern medical technologies have yet to find a cure.
Without the aid of modern medicine, ancient peoples lived shorter lives, but if
Oxenham and Tilley’s findings are indicative of any patterns, even those of them
who suffered from the most critical congenital conditions seemed to have lived
and died with a dignity that eludes many elderly people today.
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Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Bioarcheology
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Well said!
ReplyDeleteMy parents in Michigan lost a neighbor to heart attack this weekend; their age peers in their neighborhood are all gone now. They are the only octogenarians remaining. I think that the longer we live, the lonelier we become. The very real possibility that we might outlive our parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and--saddest of all--our children, could leave us stranded in life, a living artifact without context. No-one would remember us in our vibrant, supple, splendid youth.
This is not to say that our elders are without purpose or meaning, just that our culture (as you point out) doesn't value them. A culture that disregards its elders is a culture without depth, worshipping cleverness, perhaps, and ignoring wisdom.
No one will remember us is a very fetching idea in and of itself. Forget about our vibrant youths and think about all the memories that vanish when someone departs. Minds are the repository of memory and one by one they vanish until, the memory of all of us is annihilated. Now on the subject of age, i personally hope that I have the guts to pass the baton on, rather than lingering around to such a point that attending to my existence becomes an obligation for someone. I realize this runs contrary to the notion of the culture I describe, but let’s face facts my kind has not been brought up as well as the those folks who cared for the young Vietnamese man 4000 years ago. Medical science will attempt to extend my life to the chagrin of all those who have to deal with my inevitable crankiness.
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