This study gathers skeletal evidence on seven basic indicators of health to assess chronic conditions that affected individuals who lived in the Western Hemisphere from 5000 B. C. to the late nineteenth century. Signs of biological stress in childhood and of degeneration in joints and in teeth increased in the several millenia before the arrival of Columbus as populations moved into less healthy ecological environments. | The Backbone of History by Richard H. Steckel, Paperback | Indigo Chapters