Overview

Parasites have been infecting humans throughout our evolution. When complex societies developed, the greater population density provided new opportunities for parasites to spread. In this interdisciplinary volume, the author brings his expertise in medicine, archaeology and history to explore the contribution of parasites in causing flourishing past civilizations to falter and decline. By using cutting edge methods, Mitchell presents the evidence for parasites that infected the peoples of key ancient civilizations across the world in order to understand their impact upon those populations. This new understanding of the archaeological and historical evidence for intestinal worms, ectoparasites, and protozoa shows how different cultures were burdened by contrasting types of diseases depending upon their geographical location, endemic insects, food preferences and cultural beliefs.

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9781107000773

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'This volume … challenges us to think about these civilizations without macroparasites - what would they be like day-to-day? How would their histories be different? Thinking in this way, it becomes easy to see the tremendous social and biological impacts that macroparasites had, and continue to have, on humans of the past and present.' Sophie K. Joseph, The Quarterly Review of Biology

'This volume ... challenges us to think about these civilizations without macroparasites - what would they be like day-to-day? How would their histories be different? Thinking in this way, it becomes easy to see the tremendous social and biological impacts that macroparasites had, and continue to have, on humans of the past and present.' Sophie K. Joseph, The Quarterly Review of Biology

Author Information

Piers Mitchell is trained in medicine, archaeology and medical history, and leads the Ancient Parasites Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, UK. Piers has been president of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology, and also president of the Paleopathology Association, the worldwide organisation for the study of ancient diseases.

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