Bioarchaeologists who study human remains in ancient historic and contemporary settings are
securely anchored within anthropology as anthropologists yet they have not taken on the
pundits the way other subdisciplines within anthropology have. Popular science authors
frequently and selectively use bioarchaeological data on demography disease violence
migration and diet to buttress their poorly formed arguments about general trends in human
behavior and health beginning with our earliest ancestors. While bioarchaeologists are experts
on these subjects bioarchaeology and bioarchaeological approaches have largely remained
invisible to the public eye. Current issues such as climate change droughts warfare violence
famine and the effects of disease are media mainstays and are subjects familiar to
bioarchaeologists many of whom have empirical data and informed viewpoints both for topical
exploration and also for predictions based on human behavior in deep time. The contributions in
this volume will explore the how and where the data has been misused present new ways of using
evidence in the service of making new discoveries and demonstrate ways that our long term
interdisciplinarity lends itself to transdisciplinary wisdom. We also consider possible reasons
for bioarchaeological invisibility and offer advice concerning the absolute necessity of
bioarchaeologists speaking out through social media.
