Built on Bones

Built on Bones-15,000 Years of Urban Life and Death, a book by Brenna Hassett

When I bought this book, I thought that the author –I had recently read another by her– was going to take a chronological journey through the history of cities, from the first human settlements before the so-called «Neolithic revolution» to the present day.

But I was wrong. This is not a typical historical narrative. Although it can be said that it follows a certain chronological order, the subjects it deals with are arranged according to a thematic criterion. She has not tried to tell the history of the cities, but to show how the information contained in the skeletal remains of the people who have inhabited them can tell us about the conditions in which they lived.

It begins with the first stable settlements and considers whether, as some specialists claim, these settlements reduced the quality and duration of life. The most important change in the way we humans have fed ourselves came when we started to grow plants to produce food.

From this milestone, settlements gradually became cities. However, this process was not linear, as there were comings and goings; there were settlements that were abandoned and, after abandoning agriculture, their former inhabitants returned to hunting and gathering as a way of life.

This return to earlier ways of life may have been a consequence of the difficulties or of the living conditions typical of the settlements, perhaps more unhealthy, harsher and structured according to oppressive social hierarchies for the majority of the population.

Those who remained in the settlements did so because they were caught in the so-called "grain trap". In the words of the political scientist and anthropologist James Scott –author of the excellent essay Against the Grain–, it was not people who domesticated grain, but grain that domesticated us: agriculture bred more people to grow more grain, but with no concern for human well-being. In fact, the success of the cities was the same as that of the Neolithic: it was based on winning in a numbers game, even if it came at a high price.

To assess the impact of urban and agricultural life on quality of life and life expectancy, archaeologists use anatomical indicators such as the absolute or relative length of the bones of the limbs, or the dimensions and characteristics of the insertion of certain tendons into the bones. The also used dental characteristics, including micro-marks resulting from changes in growth rate, or the presence of cavities associated with the consumption of reserve carbohydrates from plants.

Similarly, the skeletal remains of animals found in Neolithic settlements reveal the patterns in the use of different resources: males were sacrificed young to obtain meat, and females were left to produce milk and give birth to young individuals.

Molecular genetics is also providing valuable information to the study of living conditions in the past. The spread of the ability to digest milk in adulthood has been dated in different parts of the Old World, because this ability appeared more than once, and its spreads was always associated with pastoralism.

Settlement in cities, as has been said, brought with it social stratification and the emergence or increase of inequalities. Much of the damage caused by urban life originated precisely in the inequality that was the consequence of the division of labor, the appearance of castes and the extraction of rents by an elite.

Urban life also led to an increase in violence, violence that was often exercised through the use of weapons made of metals that began to be mined, worked and used for multiple purposes. Bones found in urban sites contain traces of violent acts because, as the author says, we are a violent species belonging to a violent clade. It is a trait that we have not yet been able to get rid of.

Archaeology has made it possible to identify these manifestations of violence, and even to make interesting speculations about their nature: between people, between populations (wars), structural (that which the system generates against its citizens).

Disease can have strong negative impact on the quality of life and life expectancy of human beings. That is why it is important to be informed about them. Some diseases leave traces in the bones, although it is not always possible or easy to correctly assign their origin or cause. It is not easy to identify the pathogen or disease process that caused it.

Infectious diseases have been of paramount importance in the development of human civilization. In general, the cities most affected by epidemics were large urban centers, due to the greater proximity and contact between their inhabitants, and, especially, those that were better connected to other large cities and formed part of large networks. The same factors that favored the development of these cities became the main risks in the event of a plague. This is why empires, with their armies moving from place to place, favored the spread of large epidemics.

On the other hand, living in close proximity to animals –commensals, such as rodents of various species, or animals bred in captivity– is also a risk factor, because many infectious diseases are zoonotic: they are transmitted to humans who are in close contact with them.

These issues and others that I have not included in this brief review have been used by Brenna Hassett to present and explain the keys contained in the skeletal remains of human beings who lived in cities before us, since the dawn of what we call civilization, and which allow archaeologists to reconstruct essential aspects of the way our ancestors lived.

Archaeology is a discipline that requires a great deal of effort and a long time to reach conclusions that are, by their very nature, highly susceptible to change. The inherent provisionality of scientific knowledge is particularly important, but the methods used today have become extremely sophisticated. This has made it possible to include in the studies micro-things (micro-marks, pollen, microorganisms, etc...) as well as macro-things (buildings, weapons, tombs...) that had always been studied. And thanks to all this, we have more and more knowledge about our past.

That's what's important. And it is something that Hassett describes masterfully. The author doesn't try to come up with clear-cut answers to the questions she raises; she evaluates different alternatives, with their pros and cons, and gives her opinion, almost never forceful, always qualified.

The book is not only interesting for its content, but also very pleasant to read. The author makes frequent use of humor and is particularly witty. This makes her informative texts very entertaining. This is the second book that I have read by her (the other, published in 2022, is Growing Up Human: the Evolution of Childhood) and in both I have found that ability to make what is said understandable and to give the reader a good time.

The book:

Title: Built on Bones-15,000 Yeras of Urban Life and Death

Author: Brenna Hassett

Ed. by Bloomsbury Sigma, 2017