Skeletal health in the Western Hemisphere from 4000 B.C. to the present

There has been long-standing interest in the history of human health and well-being over the millennia. The major sources of information are written ac- counts of life in the past, such as wills, diaries, tax records, military records, and court documents. These sources, however, may be inaccurate and are susceptible to distortion by selective reporting and biases in the cultural perspectives and objectives of both writers and users. Data on variation in the heights of people who lived over the last several centuries have recently become available for several populations and provide a less subjective source of information on the history of health (for a review see Steckel1). Although valuable, these records are mostly for males living in now-industrialized nations such as Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States; they certainly do not provide a comprehensive picture of the history of health across continents or regions. Moreover, height measures only one dimension of health during the years of human growth and development. It does not provide an overall measure of health status throughout the life cycle. Richard H. Steckel is Professor of Economics and Anthropology at The Ohio State University, Columbus. With Jerome Rose, he co-directs the History of Health in the Western Hemisphere Project, some of the results of which are presented in this article.