New Perspectives in the Study of ancient Egyptian Bioarchaeology

Abstract

This paper presents a summary of the current ‘state of the art’ in bioarchaeology in Ancient Egypt. Bioarchaeology has, in the past, been seen as a handmaiden to historical archaeology (including Egyptology), but current bioarchaeological research places the study of human remains at the forefront of major research questions. Bioarchaeology has moved beyond simply providing an inventory of skeletons or mummies recovered from sites, complete with descriptions of their pathological lesions, and is moving towards answering more theoretical questions about past people and their lives. In this paper, some of these major current theoretical issues in bioarchaeology are briefly discussed. The rest of the paper provides discussion and exemplars of some current approaches to bioarchaeology in Egypt and highlights future directions for potential research. Due to issues of space and the actual practicality of working in Egypt, unfortunately not all current avenues of bioarchaeological research are discussed (e.g. use of ancient DNA analyses).