Context for a Bioarchaeology of Care

Abstract

Context for a Bioarchaeology of Care: Chapter 3 presents the conceptual basis for the design of the first three stages of the bioarchaeology of care methodology: (i) describing the individual, their pathology and their lifeways; (ii) assessing likely experience of disability and assessing whether, on the balance of probability, care was required for survival; and (iii) constructing a model of the care likely provided. It defines and operationalises key terms and concepts (health, disease, disability and care) relevant to bioarchaeology of care research; reviews constraints to identifying experience of disease and disability in the past, and the implications of these for inferring health-related care provision; considers likely level of demand for healthcare in prehistory, based on evidence from palaeopathology, ethnography and modern epidemiology; proposes certain ‘constants’ of caregiving practice, operating across human history and potentially applicable to developing a ‘model of care’ in individual cases of care provision; and, finally, makes explicit some basic parameters of bioarchaeology of care analysis.