The two articles that I have chosen to discuss as examples of well written and not so well written articles are both related to paleopathology. The first, a recent article by Sabrina Agarwal (2012), is a piece that I came across earlier this semester in reading for another course. I think that this article provides an excellent example of a work that gently pushes the boundaries of the field in terms of the inclusion of gender-related theory in paleopathological analyses and the according alteration of methods, but in a way that fits easily within the existing and established “canonical” dialogues. The second, written by Debra Martin et al. (2010), is an article that I have loved to hate since I first encountered in at the beginning of my Master’s coursework. While I knew that something about this piece did not sit right with me, it took reading this article with a deeper focus on the way it was written to figure out exactly what that unsettling aspect was.

Agarwal SC. 2012. The past of sex, gender, and health: bioarchaeology of the aging skeleton. American Anthropologist 114: 322-335.

In this article, Agarwal (2012) examines how bioarchaeologists approach the evaluation of osteoporosis or bone loss in the past in relation to sex and age, and how standard approaches in paleopathology that focus on sex-based differences can obscure other sources of variation. This focus on biological sex as the major determining factor for variation in bone loss is related both to the limitations imposed by the current method of determining sex as the first step in standard bioarchaeological methodologies, as well as to the expectations suggested by a modern biomedical paradigm. Using a bioarchaeological case study of rural and urban samples from medieval Britain, the author explores the fluidity of categories like sex and gender in the past, considering them in the context of a lifecourse approach to aging.

The first aspect of the article that makes it a great example of social scientific writing is its structure. Agarwal (2012) lays out the fundamental conclusions of her study and the basic tenets of her argument in the first sentences of her introduction. The article is clearly organized and manages to preserve a consistent flow despite its comprehensive coverage of contextual information in terms of paleopathological methods and previous studies, theoretical developments within anthropology, and the background, methods, results, and interpretations based on her own case study as well. Agarwal (2012) succinctly outlines the way that bioarchaeologists have approached questions of sex and gender, aging, and bone loss in the past, as well as the points at which these and other factors influencing the maintenance and loss of bone intersect in analyses. She also outlines major methodological trends within paleopathology as well as important theoretical developments within this and other fields that have relevance to the conceptualization of aging, gendered identities, and health. She manages to engage in theoretical dialogues outside of paleopathology and physical anthropology. Bone loss in medieval Britain is presented early on as an ideal example of the theoretical issues the author wishes to explore, providing an immediate and obvious answer to the question of what this may be a case of. The “hourglass” format incorporating various levels of analysis is implemented extremely well in this article, with the discussion of major theoretical developments and paleopathological trends giving way to a discussion of the specifics of the author’s chosen case study, and then once again branching out to a discussion of how the case study is able to engage with theoretical issues and contribute to the conception of a “new paradigm” emphasizing cumulative life experiences in the creation of skeletal bodies (Agarwal 2012, 331).

The approach taken in this article truly is novel in paleopathology, for “although theoretical work has sought to critically address the dualities of biological sex and gender, there have been very few studies that have explicitly explored this theoretical ground in conjunction with the analyses of actual skeletal remains” (Agarwal 2012, 323). The article does an excellent job of highlighting the points of friction within the field, acknowledging the lack of correlation between theoretical developments and practical applications. The tendency to collapse the concepts of biological sex and gender, despite the engagement of bioarchaeologists with the concept of gender as socioculturally constructed, is identified as another point of friction.

In her case study, Agarwal (2012) demonstrates that the skeletal samples from rural medieval Britain did not follow a modern pattern of bone loss, and did not demonstrate significant differences based on biological sex. Based on historical, bioarchaeological, and biomedical evidence, the author considers the potential effects of nutrition, physical activity, and reproductive behavior as influencing factors on bone loss in the rural and urban skeletal samples. Agarwal (2012) mentions the resistance she faced from reviewers and editors in attempting to publish the data from these sites in a way that analyzed both biological sexes together rather than separately. This clearly demonstrates the “canonical” resistance to conceptualizing sex, gender, and the aging process in a different way than has been traditionally applied. This may be one of the factors leading the author to present her own modifications to traditional approaches as merely a “subtle change in analysis” (Agarwal 2012, 331) that pushes the boundaries without upsetting the established canons. In this article, the author does an excellent job of highlighting and verbalizing what to this point have been underlying and mainly unconscious assumptions inherent in bioarchaeological analyses of gender and aging. She calls attention to limitations and questions established methods, but in a way that still manages to remain acceptable (even if only barely, by her own admission) to more traditionally oriented researchers. I find this aspect of the article inspiring, and hope that I can manage to accomplish this type of criticism half so well.

There is one problem identified by the author that she does not manage to address in her own work. While Agarwal (2012) is able to identify the limitations imposed by the primacy of sex determination and the exclusion of individuals for whom biological sex cannot be securely established on bioarchaeological views of gender and consideration of gender differences in the past, her own analysis is also affected by this limitation. It is likely that further investigation is necessary to devise a solution to this complicated issue. It is also possible that the incorporation of this methodological step was a necessary inclusion by the author in order to compromise novelty with a more “canonical” way of doing things in order to engage with established dialogues.

Martin DL, Harrod RP, Fields M. 2010. Beaten down and worked to the bone: bioarchaeological investigations of women and violence in the ancient southwest. Landscapes of Violence 1 (Art 3): 1-19.

This paper by Martin et al. (2010) appears to me to represent an attempt on the part of the authors to accomplish the same goal as the article by Agarwal (2012), namely introducing a theoretical concept that is not commonly incorporated in paleopathological analyses and applying it to an osteological case study to demonstrate its utility in bioarchaeology. However, these authors do not manage to connect the theory and practical application strongly enough to demonstrate convincingly that this theoretical concept can be of direct relevance to paleopathologists or that their bioarchaeological sample provides an ideal case study. Martin et al. (2010) present an interesting discussion of various developments in the study of violence, such as the functional nature of violence, the involvement of women in violent practices as perpetrators rather than victims, and differences between direct and indirect violence, the implementation of which may vary by gender. They do a good job of outlining theoretical concepts relating to how women may have contributed to violent practices in past societies. However, as far as I can tell the case study they have chosen provides no specific evidence to suggest that this practice may actually have occurred at the site they discuss. Therefore, while the article raises some interesting possibilities and engages with dialogues that are occurring in other disciplines, the theoretical and practical sections of the article seem completely disparate with nothing strongly tying them together.

In terms of organization and structure, this article displays a tendency toward “mystery writing.” Martin et al. (2010) thoroughly introduce the theoretical concepts that they will be discussing in the first few introductory and contextual sections. However, there is no clear statement of the aims or accomplishments of the paper within the introduction, or in fact until several pages into the article. This is made more difficult by the fact that the structure of articles in this particular journal does not include an abstract, and so there is no concise statement of the authors’ conclusions until the final sections of the paper. The case study chosen by the authors as an illustration of their theoretical concepts is not even mentioned until the fourth page, and is not tied into the major conclusions until much further on in the paper. The authors do attempt to structure the scale of topics in their paper in an hourglass formation, but the various segments are not tied together well enough to create a truly logical flow.

There are also difficulties with this article in terms of the level of support within various bodies of literature for the concepts the authors attempt to apply to their skeletal case study. For example, Martin et al. (2010) state very clearly that survivable injuries impacting the cranial vault inevitably lead to brain damage. They provide no citation to a biomedical or clinical study that might support this claim, yet they go on to state fairly unequivocally that this brain damage would cause behavioral changes relevant to individuals experiencing further violent conflicts. I think that this represents an overextension of the evidence, as it is presented as an established fact rather than one possibility among many. Additionally, the ethnographic comparative example of the Turkana society used by Martin et al. (2010) as supporting evidence is from an extremely different context than that of the American southwest. The authors themselves state that there are many cultural differences between the two societies, and that while female-instigated violence occurs in the context of polygynous marriages among the Turkana, there is no ethnographic evidence for polygyny in the ancient southwest. Furthermore, the source cited for this ethnographic information is an unpublished conference presentation rather than published reference material; as such this information is inaccessible to other researchers who may wish to confirm the validity of the comparison. The only other source of comparison included in the article is data from non-human primates.

The ideas discussed in the article are very interesting, and it would definitely be of benefit for bioarchaeologists to consider these possibilities in their analyses of past violent behaviors; the authors also tap into some useful theoretical developments in terms of different culturally determined definitions of violence. However, I don’t think that this bioarchaeological sample is the best case study in which to examine or apply these theories. The skeletal and archaeological data do not contain any features that particularly suggest a situation in which women are the perpetrators of violence to be relevant, and the association seems therefore to be mainly conjecture. In my opinion, the major conclusions made by Martin et al. (2010) are not fully supported by reliable evidence. It appears as though the authors may be reaching for a case study to try to fit the theory, even though it doesn’t clearly or strongly demonstrate evidence of the type of circumstances they are implicating. As the authors themselves state in their conclusions, “the development of [this] new hypothesis related to the root causes of violence takes a more nuanced approach as well as, at times, an interpretive leap in teasing apart the potential effects of social factors on violent behaviors” (Martin et al. 2010, 14).