The purpose of this research is to analyze health and nutrition status in the Western Hemisphere from pre-Columbian times to the early twentieth century using skeletal data. The skeletal evidence from 10,000 to 15,000 individuals at 100 to 200 cites will be complied into a common format and summarized in an index of biological standard of living, which incorporates an individual's length of life and biological quality of life. Research will be conducted by 17 interdisciplinary teams that will use a common methodology and gain interdisciplinary understanding at a conference to be held at Ohio State University. A major purpose of the conference is to reach agreement on data reporting protocols, which assure that all data are in a form suitable for coding and comparative analysis, and it will include seminars on methods of skeletal biology for economic historians and seminars on issues in economic history for bioarcheologists. The teams will prepare reports on the health and nutrition of particular regions, time periods, or ethnic groups. Tabulations of the index and related measures will be made available to the teams as ingredients in reports that will test alternative hypotheses concerning the biological impact of socioeconomic change. The project is important because it will develop new methods for analyzing and understanding changes in long-term economic well being.
