Bioarcheology

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.