Built on Bones: 15,000 Years of Urban Life and Death

by Brenna Hassett

Using clues from teeth and skeletal remains, an archaeologist explores our 15,000-year evolution into city dwellers, from our first settlements to the urban sprawl of the Industrial Age. Humans and their immediate ancestors were successful hunter-gatherers for hundreds of thousands of years, but in the last fifteen thousand years humans have gone from finding food to farming it, from seasonal camps to sprawling cities, from a few people to hordes. Drawing on her own fieldwork in the Mediterranean, Africa, Asia, and beyond, archaeologist Brenna Hassett explores the long history of urbanization through revolutionary changes written into the bones of the people who lived it. For every major new lifestyle, another way of dying appeared. From the "cradle of civilization" in the ancient Near East to the dawn of agriculture on the American plains, skeletal remains and fossils show evidence of shorter lives, rotten teeth, and growth interrupted. The scarring on human skeletons reveals that getting too close to animals had some terrible consequences, but so did getting too close to too many other people. Each chapter of Built on Bones moves forward in time, discussing in depth humanity's great urban experiment. Hassett explains the diseases, plagues, epidemics, and physical dangers we have unwittingly unleashed upon ourselves throughout the urban past--and, as the world becomes increasingly urbanized, what the future holds for us. In a time when "Paleo" lifestyles are trendy and so many of us feel the pain of the city daily grind, this book asks the critical Was it worth it?

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, Archaeology, Anthropology, Audiobook, Prehistory

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

A paleoarchaeologist writes. This is about the study of human bones and what they tell us about how people lived in the dim and distant past, and specifically about what changed for us as a species as we moved towards more sitting still and clumping together. Spoiler: it's not so much city life that's bad for us, though it is, as that cities tend to mean inequality, which is the lethal thing.

It's breezily written, striving for accessibility to laypeople, and very personal, with a lot of anecdotes about life as a paleoarchaeologist. I really liked that: it humanised the process of science and made the difficulties of finding evidence and drawing conclusions clear, which really worked well against the Just So stories and assertions people love to trot out about the past. Author is also satisfyingly rude about the ludicrous 'paleo' trend.

[Tracey Allen at Carpe Librum · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've always had an interest in archaeology. I don't mean fossils and dinosaurs, but the remnants of recent civilisations and those long buried and forgotten. When a new plague pit is discovered on a construction site or the long lost remains of Richard III were located in a supermarket carpark, I'm going to be there to read about it.

As the title suggests, Built on Bones by Brenna Hassett takes a look at 15,000 Years of Urban Life and Death. As an archaeologist she specialises in the human skeleton to look at whether the move towards an urban lifestyle results in an earlier death than the foragers and nomads of history. Hassett looks at the changes in skeletons - and teeth in particular - which provide plenty of interesting tidbits and conclusions.

A highlight for me was on Page 49, where Hassett explains that with the move to agriculture and 'slurpable foods,' there was less work for our jaws, therefore less muscle, and as a consequence our jaws and faces have shrunk in size. This explains a great deal of the dental crowding and associated problems we see today.

I enjoyed learning more about the history and symptoms of urban diseases including syphilis, smallpox, leprosy and TB and Hassett also piqued my interest on Page 153 when she wrote about the practice of burying criminals in embarrassing positions.

Ultimately though, Built on Bones was a whole lot more academic than I was expecting. For a complete novice it was tough going at times and quite scientific. What made this somewhat harder were the infuriating footnotes on every other page. The majority of the footnotes were jokes and comic asides which kept drawing me away from the text and disrupting my rhythm. Well, why didn't you just ignore them I can hear you ask. Well, I couldn't ignore them because occasionally there would be an absolute gem I didn't want to miss, so I had to persevere.

Built on Bones by Brenna Hassett is recommended for armchair archaeologists, scientists, doctors, medical professionals, historians and devotees of Darwinism.

* Copy courtesy of Bloomsbury *

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm giving this book 2 stars because there was some interesting information but I was unable to finish the book because I got so frustrated with the author's writing style.

The author provides a ton of information about past societies and what we can learn from them. The subject matter is similar to books by Jared Diamond but the writing style is on a whole other planet entirely. I was ready to throw this book down in disgust by 25% of the way through and actually stopped reading right after the halfway point. The author makes a lot of unnecessary comments throughout the book and includes a zillion footnotes that add nothing of value- are in fact just snarky little comments. I felt that the footnotes etc. where the authors way of rubbing it into her colleagues faces that she could in fact publish whatever the heck she wanted. Ugh, so annoying.

For example, one footnote reads: "My colleague and former office mate Laura Buck spent several months delighting me with ethnographic evidence for the consumption of reindeer stomach, but inexplicably rejected my suggested article title of 'Reindeer tummies and the Neanderthals who loved them'." Another reads: "Should my old PhD supervisors ever come across this section, I fully expect reports of eminent physical anthropologists spontaneously combusting to rapidly follow." Someone please explain to me how this footnotes add any value to the book.

Overall, I was not pleased with this book. While it might be an interesting read if someone where to take the time to remove all of the snarky comments and footnotes, there are much better texts on this subject available that I would rather spend my time reading. Unless you love sassy comments in serious books, do yourself a favor and skip "Built on Bones".

I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Bookshire Cat]

DNF at the very beginning so I’m not going to rate it. I hated the smug style and the narrator of the audiobook highlighted it even more. It is also clearly directed to laypeople who not only know nothing about paleo archaeology, but also have never met any scientific text in their life. Not that there is anything wrong with that but I personally find this level of in your face explanations truly annoying.

[Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't think I've ever employed the description "wisecracking bio-archaeologist" before, but that's the best label to apply to the author of this book, Brenna Hassett. She brings a very light touch to scholarly writing, transforming what might otherwise be very turgid prose into a very lively and often very funny account of her research and her archaeological adventures. Fortunately, she puts most but no means all her wisecracks into footnotes, so you can ignore them when you tire of them.

Hassett's particular area of specialty is bio-archaeology is teeth. It turns out that you can find out quite a bit about Stone Age humans by examining their teeth, which have the interesting property of having growth rings analogous to those of trees. So, you can find out interesting things about the teeth's deceased owners, such as their diet, state of health, lifespan, method of milling their grain, and their genetic heritage. One interesting result from her research is the discovery that, in the transition from hunting & gathering to farming, our ancestors often suffered a deterioration of their health -- even as they were able to multiply much more quickly. A hunter-gatherer woman only bears children once every four years or so, whereas a farm woman can bear children more often, because she doesn't have to lug the kids around with her.

Built on Bones is in general a rambling sort of walk through pre-history, where the themes often disappear from view for pages at a time. But the following are the main themes of the book:
* People moved from hunting and gathering to farming (though sometimes reverted back to the former when the farming didn't work out) because they the farmers could outbreed the hunter-gatherers, and eventually swamped them. They outbred the hunter-gatherers even though farming offered a poorer diet and a duller lifestyle, but because they were sedentary they could still raise more kids.
* Agriculture was developed independently in multiple places on earth: the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, the Americas, East Asia ...
* Inequality arose because a sedentary life permitted the accumulation of wealth, higher population, and the emergence of social hierarchy. Those at the top of the hierarchy took more of the wealth. This is a bad thing, as we continue to see in extreme form in the modern era. It shortens lives, worsens health, coarsens society, reduces the quality of life, increases crime ...
* There was no golden era of violence-free life when humans lived in a state of nature. We've always been violent, but urban life and the development of civilization have helped to make us less violent than we used to be. (Steven Pinker's book, the "Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined", is the one to read on this topic.)
* Diseases mark our bones and even sometimes creep into our DNA. One particularly interesting chapter deals with tuberculosis and leprosy, two diseases caused by the same genus of bacteria, and which both sometimes deform bones. Leprosy was one of the curses of ancient times -- as noted in the Bible -- and also marked the early medieval era. An interesting tidbit is the fact that there were 300 leper-houses founded in England between 1100 and 1350. Considering that there must have been only five million or so people living in the country, far fewer than live in, say, the San Francisco Bay Area, that is a stunning number. But curiously, this disease largely died out after the Black Death in the mid-1300's. TB, on the other hand, has grown spectacularly, along with the growth of cities with their wonderful environment for spreading germs. This disease seems likely to be with us for a long-time, since our sloppy use of antibiotics has caused the emergence of multi-drug resistant forms of the bacteria. One million people a year still die of this disease, which is now typically a disease of the poor and the incarcerated.

The author's quirky writing style is an acquired taste, and if you like tightly written prose that sticks to the topic and makes its points in a succinct and tightly structured way, you probably won't like this book. If you do decide to read this book, I'd recommend the introduction and the first two or three chapters, plus the conclusion.

[Simone Beg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Personally I quite enjoyed the writing style. I like snarky, I like sarcasm, I like wacky humour and most of all I like scientists who are good old down to earth dorky nerds rather than condescending preachers from the academic ivory tower.

I thoroughly enjoyed especially the random glimpses into the very special tribe that seem to be field archeologists. These were usually put in footnotes as they didn’t really belong to the all over line of argument (duh). And after 20 pages any reader should be able to figure out that that is the way in which the author chose to use her footnotes. So at that point if those side remarks, jokes and anecdotes are not your jam, why wouldn’t you just skip them?

The chapters themselves are highly interesting and jam packed with information. For me it was not something I could read in one go. I needed little breaks between chapters to properly digest them. All over I found it a highly interesting and entertaining read though. I do feel like I learned a lot and took quite a bit away for myself reading it.

I think generally some reviews here may be due to the individual readers’ expectations not having been met. If you’re expecting suspenseful easily readable layman’s science, no, for that it’s a bit too dense. If you’re expecting a proper science thesis, also no, because for that the allover tone is really too familiar/not what you’d expect from a science publication. Well I picked up this book randomly from the fiction section (it seems the south Asian book store I bought it at wasn’t quite sure how to place it), figured though it’s not fiction, but anyhow decided to go into it without any expectations. What I found was a laid back and entertaining yet very knowledgeable insight on the subject matter.

There’s one reason however why I can’t give it 5 stars is that I found the author’s conclusion in the last chapter a little rushed and not very well fleshed out. The jump from the partly quite grim takeaway from all the chapters to the author’s optimistic conclusion came a little sudden. It kind of reminded me of writing a thesis and just wanting to get it over with so you just kind of wrap everything up desperately on a page or two. I would have appreciated five to ten more pages to flesh that pivot out a bit more.

Anyway, I’m very glad about this chance find and wouldn’t mind at all sitting down for some beers with the author to hear more!

[Maura Heaphy Dutton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love archaeology. And I don't mind non-fiction books in which the author's opinions and personality are given a place in the narrative. Done properly, treating the research as the author's journey can lighten up the dry facts and science. However ... Did I say "done properly"?

I had to give up about half-way through when I realized that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that Dr. Hassett won't footnote. Jokey asides about pop culture? Shout outs to friends, colleagues, rivals? Paleographic in-jokes (usually of the not-very-funny "you had to be there" kind)? What she ate, what she wore, how she slept on any number of digs she has participated in? Yes, yes, yes and YES.

Or should I say, no, no, no and NO! The lady is obviously very knowledgeable, but a misunderstanding about how much we want to know about her subject, and how much we what to know about her, constantly get in the way. What could have been an interesting study of the impact of our distant ancestors' somewhat questionable decision to take up agriculture and cluster together in villages and cities became an impossible read.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is about what bones can tell us about city living. It turns out, the answer is quite a lot, but that it's more like lots of people yelling than one person stood calmly explaining*. There's a lot to say, and one of the things I really like about this book is that it's good at explaining the scope of its statements. People are complicated!

I also really liked that it's funny. I have no idea whether it just happened to hit my particular reference set quite well, but it made me laugh and also wish more people wrote their non-fiction this way***. It's light and easy to read, while not being simplistic. I would thoroughly recommend.


*This will not surprise many readers of this book, who are probably nerds and/or academics**.

**Are there any academics who aren't nerds? I suspect not.

***Although the endless and often lolarious footnotes have, obviously, had NO impact on my own thought processes. At all.

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the Bloomsbury Sigma titles, so it’s fairly light-hearted, accessibly written, and not too heavy on the scientific footnotes (though there’s a lot of joking ones), but trustworthy enough that I found it fascinating. Hassett discusses mostly bioarchaeology and what it has to say about that great human endeavour: city life. A lot of people are very critical about city living and its suitability for humanity, but Hassett’s mostly pretty positive about it (after the initial transition period, at least).

And surprise! There’s also a lot about disease, making it super relevant to me in my interest in zoonotic diseases especially. A whole section on leprosy and TB! It’s like it was written for me.

A fun and informative read, definitely good popular science/archaeology, if that interests you.

Reviewed for The Bibliophibian.

[J. Lee Hazlett · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Fascinating discussion of many topics relating to humanity's settling down into villages and towns. The author does a great job of keeping an open mind and presenting multiple viewpoints, which is important due to the many holes in our knowledge about the past. It is also a rare thing to come across in more academically-minded literature, since most authors feel the need to defend theories that they've either developed themselves or need to be true as an underpinning of their own work. Another rare trait of this book was the author's tongue-in-cheek wit, which is scattered throughout the main text and the footnotes. Readers with little or no background in anthropology, archaeology, or history may find themselves laboring to understand some points, but the author does about the best job one can do to give accessible explanations for the more complicated concepts.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating read, written like a true expert - clearly explaining complexities & specialist knowledge, not hiding behind poorly explained, complex terms. The style is like that of Mary Roach & Alice Roberts, at their best, combined. I’m not naïve of many of the subjects covered but I still learned a lot. The focus of much of the book is on the neolithic & the beginning of cities, and the author covers inequalities & abuse of people in a really sensitive way. I particularly liked the closing chapter, so like an academic but also accessible. Which is a good summary of the book generally.

[Dna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Holy Moses. This sucks. Are you kidding with the ridiculous annotations, which are almost always pointless? The sloppy writing, which is padded and padded some more with inane garbage? What did I pick up? Ugh. Great idea. Poor execution.

[Tamara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and humourous. Recommended for any history/archaeology buffs

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I heard an interview with the author; she discussed her work as a bioarcheologist researching not just early cities but also the impact they had on us. My favorite moment though was her quick dismissive response to a question about the modern paleo diet and wasn't that we'd evolved to eat? "We evolved not to starve."

I was slightly worried at the beginning as it opened with a jeep ride or some such, usually a sign for me that a book is more memoir than science*. In fact her personal interjections are pretty breezy and up my alley, with a Talking Heads and Monty Python reference in the first page or two. The chattiness is often dumped in gratuitous footnotes** that I mostly like, though a great many could have been cut by a more judicious editor†.

In terms of the substance there are a lot of interesting facts. We clearly got less healthy when we settled down in the neolithic, as evidenced by teeth and diminished physical stature. On the other hand interpersonal violence probably went down while structural violence and inequality went up. War? Tough to say, but the paleolithic error certainly wasn't free of it. There are interesting discussions of inequality: For example, one important archaeological moment is when children are buried with high value goods for the first time. This distinguishes them from a society that is more-or-less meritocratic and means status (and resources) are being allocated based on birth.

It was hard to synthesize the facts into a narrative, though, and I was often re-reading conclusions of chapters to make sure I got her point. But she's reporting on the science, not advancing her own personal grand theory (like, say, Jared Diamond) and the science simply isn't settled. I very much appreciate that, and the final chapter is a strong summary of the book as a whole. Even the well documented health decline that took place when we settled down has two sides: evidence of rampant childhood illness and stunted growth in adult bones is evidence of people surviving these afflictions.

A really strong three stars for me. I definitely see this as a YMMV book though: don't expect a grand theory of cities and the informality won't appeal to everyone, despite the strong content in the book as a whole.



*A genre that almost never works for me.
**A form of interjection I think is underused.
†I mean, these are getting old already, right? Try 300 pages of them.††
††On the other hand I see other reviewers nearly livid about them. For Christ's sake, people, just skip them if they bother you.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book received from NetGalley.

I ended up really enjoying this book, but after the first chapter, I had to not consider it as a history book but a sociology one. While it does go into some history of our living in what eventually became cities, it focuses more on why people did it, how living in a city changed our life spans, what discovering agriculture meant to the early ancestors and how it made city living possible while occasionally poking fun at the "paleo" culture we have today. I did learn a few things about how cities evolved and the people who lived in them and want a copy for my own research shelves. I'm not sure this book is for everyone.

[Johanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this, fascinating and with a noticeable authorial voice - largely via the use of footnotes. That insistent voice might not be to everyone's taste though. It looks at cities and their impact on human history largely as revealed by bio-archaeology. As you'd expect it covers all those aspects of city life that we'd rather not think about; plague, war, sexually transmitted diseases etc etc. Well worth a read if you have the faintest interest in how we live now and how we got here.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm. Some interesting stuff on bones and disease, though the level of detail is way to high. Her snide, sarcastic, sardonic jokes and asides are extremely irritating. Her last chapter ode to the future and what we can do with cities is a thin just-so wish. Too much Brenna in this book, not all likeable and not enough straightforward commentary.

[Marc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hassett is a hoot *but no matter how funny she may be †constantly directing readers to trivial witticisms ‡inserted at the foot of every page §litters your book with literary potholes

[Riversue · Rating 4 out of 5]

an extremely entertaining writer on a fascinating subject

[Richard Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Built on Bones explores how archaeologists interpret dental and skeletal remains. In particular, it examines what we can infer from changes in humans’ bodies associated with our move from hunter-gatherer groups to agricultural and, later, urban societies. Or, as Brenna Hassett puts it: ‘This book is about human adaptation in the face of human invention.’

It’s a fascinating subject for a book, and bioarchaeologist Hassett is well qualified to write about it. The book contained some, to me, surprising revelations. For example, throughout the world, the adoption of agriculture seemed to go hand-in-hand with a decrease in physical stature. This could indicate that agricultural diets were not as nutritious as hunter-gatherer diets—although Hassett is quick to pour scorn on the current fad for so-called ‘palaeo’ diets.

Hassett explains how our move to urban lifestyle, while conveying certain benefits, also seems to have had numerous drawbacks—especially for those lower down the pecking order. She includes several chapters on how urban living led to new forms of violence, and encouraged different types of disease. All of which sounds rather gloomy—which perhaps explains Hassett’s liberal use of (a few too many) footnote-based jokes.

Built on Bones covers a surprisingly interesting subject in an entertaining manner. If I have one criticism it is that, in the early chapters in particular, Hassett often writes extremely long, heavily nested sentences. So much so that, on a number of occasions, I finally reached the end of a sentence only to discover I had entirely forgotten what it had been about. It’s a flaw I have tried to overcome, with limited success, in my own writing. (Handy hint: Try reading your sentences out loud. If you begin to asphyxiate before the end, they’re almost certainly too long.)

Occasional epic sentences aside, an entertaining read.

[Patty · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nonfiction book about archaeology told in a funny, easily accessible style. Built on Bones focuses on two major turning points in prehistory: the Neolithic Revolution (the invention of farming, the shift from nomadic hunter-gathering to settled villages with domesticated plants and animals) and the Urban Revolution (the development of cities), and how these changes affected human lives and health. Hassett is a bioarchaeologist - one whose speciality is analyzing human bones – so much of her data is focused on that, but she pulls in all sorts of threads to recreate the complicated world of the past.

Hassett's vision of prehistoric life is refreshingly balanced. She portrays the pre-Neolithic world as neither brutish and half-starved, from which we were only rescued by progress and technology, nor as an idyllic Eden that stress and pollution has forever destroyed. She's managed to write a book that can serve as an introduction to this historical period and archaeological techniques while also including some of the latest discoveries, which is just incredibly impressive. She also has a great sense of humor; you've got to love a science book that can throw in references to Monty Python, selfie duckface, and the sexual escapades of a typical archaeology dig.

All around, I can't recommend Built on Bones enough. If you have any remote interest in early history, you should absolutely pick up this book.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.

[Lisandra Linde · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was with a certain level of nostalgia that I curled up with this book. After all, it's been a few years since I was an archaeology student, specifically a student obsessed with human bones and what they tell us about how people lived and died in the past. It felt nice to sink back into the familiar terrain of archaeological ramblings - complete with Monty Python references - and the contradictory nature of theories old and new about how humans were shaped by, and often killed by, the development of cities.

This book is targeted at a more general readership than just 'former-and-current-archaeologists' and Hassett's writing is a pleasant mix of academic and casual. Amidst findings and theory, she treats the reader to little snippets of life writing from her experiences of different excavation sites and the peculiar culture of the archaeologists, anthropologists, volunteers and students who inhabit them.

Well worth a read for anyone interested in how urban life shaped human health, specifically through: the effects of agriculture and work on bones and tissue, the spread of disease in a steadily globalising world, the effect of sedentary life on reproduction and childhood health, and the ways that violence was - and is - dished out one-on-one, through judicial practices or in full-blown warfare.

[Daisy Reeves · Rating 5 out of 5]

After the dullness of my last read, I was hoping to dive headfirst into a meaty subject in a more engaging way. I am pleased to report that Hassett delivers on all fronts. The inevitable (if only occasional) dryness of the subject matter is perfectly tempered with hilarious footnotes featuring comical anecdotes, as well as amusing commentary relating to references in the main text.

Brenna has a personable voice that makes some of the heavier content accessible in a way that is endearing and captivating, omitting any sense of condescension that could so easily have populated the pages of a book written to educate the ignorant of bioarchaeology.

I found this comprehensive yet concise account of life and death throughout human history to be entirely focused, well-structured, and I found that Brenna has exactly the sort of warmth towards her readership that I had hoped to receive.

Outstanding book. Can't wait to read more of her work

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only a chapter into the book I read other reviews and decided to stop reading the footnotes which are largely the author's personal commentary, often trying to be humorous, lending little to the information in the book. Once I stopped reading them, it went much more smoothly. I am no stranger to much of the information in the book but it was nice to have information I've gathered from various sources over the years pulled together into a detailed synopsis. My only disappointment was the inaccurate description of the book which made it sound like there might be more info about ancient diets (no, I'm not "paleo") and explain why the move to urban living outweighed the detrimental affects to our health. I don't feel it accomplished that, instead expect the book to live up to it's name as it explores bones A LOT.

[Lois Bujold · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tracked back from the author's later and excellent book Growing Up Human; one can see the seeds of the later volume in parts of this one. An account of trying to tease out more about distant and recent (as in, last 10,000 years) human social evolution from bones (and especially teeth) than spear points can convey, with proper attention to all parts of humanity, women, children, the old, the diseased, not just warrior males, though they get their share of attention as well. The anecdote about the lethal effects of rickets in girls of 19th C. Glasgow, for example, was new to me. (Rickets in young girls distorts pelvic growth, such that one's first pregnancy becomes a death sentence. How come nobody mentioned that before...?)

Smooth and witty writing. (And very amusing footnotes.) Recommended for anyone interested in human evolution.

Ta, L.

[Lghamilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Timely read about how and why humans settled into urban living when close quarters brought a host of new diseases, including viruses transmitted from close-living with animals, leading to epidemic infections (!). Entertaining chapter on tracing syphilis' path of origin, and horrifying quote from early American settlers purposefully trying to eradicate Native Americans with the "gift" of smallpox blankets:

"Out of regard for them, we gave them two Blankets and a Handkerchief out of the Small Pox Hospital. I hope it will have the desired effect." (William Trent, 1763). Jackass, it did.

Hassett writes of all this science-y stuff in an accessible way, and keeps the humor coming in her footnotes. I would have appreciated a few more illustrations along the way.

[Annie · Rating 2 out of 5]

As someone with a BA in archaeology, I enjoyed this book. However, the writing style did not sit well with me and resulted in the low rating. It does have a ton of accurate information in it and covers a lot of things that I have read about in scholarship, but in a more accessible fashion. However, I do not think it revealed much new information to me and I worry that her quick references to sites and terminology without in-depth explanation would be confusing to a general audience. However, if you are interested in a deeper discussion of the Neolithic and the biological history of diseases, go for it cause it is well discussed and accurate.

[Pam Mclaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating dive into the bioarcheology of cities. The writer talks of the traces that life leaves on the bones and teeth of the long dead. Are cities good for us, or a death trap? Was the hunter-gatherer lifestyle all it was cracked up to be? Is the trendy paleo-diet hogwash? The writer tackles these topics, and many more in this entertaining book. From Asia to Europe to the Americas, she talks about dig sites and the conclusions drawn from them. (fully admitting that for every conclusion drawn, some other archeologist is ready and waiting to call shenanigans) If you like science with your history, you'll enjoy this book.

[P.D. Dawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting general study of bones and how they have helped us better understand history and the way people used to live. I never knew so much could be found out just by their study, and it has led me to a greater appreciation of the work these people do. Brenna Hassett also manages to turn what could have been a dry subject, into an interesting catalogue of information and fascinating facts about bones and history. There were a few moment where I found the same information was being relayed, but generally a thoroughly good read!

[Siobhan J · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was such a weird book.

On one hand I really enjoyed it while I was reading it. I found the style more charming than anything else, and a lot of the information was genuinely interesting. It felt fresh and absorbing, which is something that can be unfortunately rare in a lot of non-fiction books.

On the other hand... Looking back on it now, I honest to god cannot say what any of the author's arguments were. I'm not sure if Hassett was arguing that cities are good for us, cities are bad for us or that archaeologists throw the best parties. I enjoyed the style, but it didn't lead to a very coherent book. I enjoyed the amount of information on display, but very little effort was made to tailor it to a layperson.

So, yes. I definitely enjoyed it, but unfortunately I can't really say that it was good.