Human Biologists in the Archives: Demography, Health, Nutrition and Genetics in Historical Populations (review)

Archival data have long been used by human biologists. As S. Silverman and M.A. Little note in the foreword to this volume, basic human biology concepts such as the secular trend in growth were documented using archival data. However, although studies using archival data have played a major role in some branches of human biology (such as studies of population structure), they have traditionally been less significant in other areas. This well-produced and absorbing book makes it clear that archival investigations have much to offer human biology. I imagine that many readers will have a reaction similar to mine—a desire to find the nearest source of archival data and begin research.

Human Biologists in the Archives grew out of a symposium held at the 1999 meetings of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists and jointly sponsored by the Human Biology Association and the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. The book begins with an introductory chapter, followed by 12 chapters presenting the results of studies using archival data, and concludes with a chapter by M.T. Smith that reviews developments in archival research. Several of the chapters contain research that has been published elsewhere, so the main strength of the book is not the new research findings that it presents. Rather, this interesting set of papers illustrates the variety of questions that can be addressed using archival data and the potential of this research to enrich human biology.

In their introduction A.C. Swedlund and D.A. Herring state that archives might include not only written records but also skeletal collections, photographs, and tissue samples. Although two of the chapters in the book present information based on skeletal data, all of them rely to some extent on the analysis of written documents. Given that birth and death records are probably the most frequently kept records, many of the chapters focus on these vital statistics. In one of the chapters that I liked best, P.L. Walker and J.R. Johnson give a poignant review of the demographic collapse of the Chumash Indians in the 18th- and 19th-century California missions. The chapter by R.L. Higgins examines infant mortality in the 19th-century Erie County, New York, almshouse and illustrates some of the fascinating insights into social conditions that archives can provide. A.C. Swedlund and A.K. Donta present an interesting preliminary analysis of scarlet fever epidemics in the Connecticut River valley, suggesting that the epidemics of the mid to late 19th century were due to a more virulent pathogen than is present today. In his chapter J.H. Mielke gives a nice overview of the causes and patterning of increased mortality on the Aåland Islands during the 1808-1809 War of Finland.

A number of chapters combine birth and death data with other types of archival data. L. Madrigal's chapter reviews her studies in Escazú, Costa Rica, which examine the seasonal distribution of mortality, lack of seasonality in births, and estimates of inbreeding from surname analysis and ecclesiastical dispensations. L.A. Sawchuk and S.D.A. Burke use their rich data set to give an overview of health conditions in Gibraltar in the 1860s and a detailed analysis of the environmental circumstances that can explain why some areas suffered higher cholera mortality during the 1865 epidemic. D.A. Herring, S. Abonyi, and R.D. Hoppa examine the high mortality among Hudson Bay Cree in the 1940s and describe how this is likely attributable to poverty brought about by the collapse of the fur trade. Their chapter also includes an interesting section on Canadian government response to problems of undernutrition among northern aboriginal groups. L. Sattenspiel's chapter nicely reviews the use of mathematical models of disease spread and illustrates, using her research with D.A. Herring on the...