Practitioners, Practices and Patients: New Approaches to Medical Archaeology and Anthropology

by Gilly Carr

Medical care in the past, and indeed present societies, can be studied in a number of different ways, including palaeopatholoy, palaeobotany, literary evidence, material culture and different medical ideologies and belief systems. These 15 papers from a conference held at Magdalene College, Cambridge in 2000 explore these diverse forms of interpretation, though largely focusing on material culture aspects.

Table of Contents

Medical anthropology, material culture, and new directions in medical archaeology ( Elisabeth Hsu )
Diagnosing some the archaeology, literature and history of Roman medicine ( Patricia A Baker )
a multidisciplinary approach to past and current concepts, causes and treatment of this infectious disease ( Charlotte Roberts )
A preliminary account of the doctor's grave at Stanway, Colchester ( Philip Crummy )
A time to live a time to heal and a time to healing and divination in later Iron Age and Early Roman Britain ( Gillian Carr )
A Computer simulation of Mambila divination ( David Zeitlyn )
Beer, trees, pigs and medical tools of the Lohorung shaman and priest ( Charlotte Hardman )
Healing here, there and a Tamu shaman's experience of international landscapes ( Judith Pettigrew and Yarjung Tamu )
The Xaghra Shaman? ( Simon Stoddart )
Tobacco and curing agency in Western Amazonian shamanism ( Françoise Barbira Freedman )
Magic, healing, or death? Issues of Seidr, `balance', and morality in past and present ( Jenny Blain )
Of crystal balls, political power, and changing what the clever women of Salerno inherited ( Christopher Knüsel )
Lithic therapy in early Chinese body practices ( Vivienne Lo )
Kill or Athenian judicial curses and the body in fear ( Ralph Anderson )
Etruscan female tooth gold dental appliances as ornaments ( Marshall Becker )

272 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2002