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This article is a direct slam of Wood et al (1992). Goodman suggests that what they consider paradoxical only a peer so, because they focus on single rather than multiple indicators of health and this interpret the goals of paleoepidemiology, and that the models the construct do not reflect biological realities and credible cultural contexts. <p> Ortner indicates that pathology is the survival of a stress or disease event
for Wood et al (1992), pathology indicates nonsurvival. Ortner (1991) proposes, therefore, that signs of infection all are evidence of survival. Goodman does not except the idea that pathology's are interpreted as signs of "health" and "adaptation" (Goodman et al 1988
Goodman 1991). <p> The first mistake made by Wood et al (1992) is that they provide information on mortality the do not use it. Using an imaginary example of mortality, they make the assumption that individuals displaying lesions may actually be healthier than at least some individuals without lesions. Using three groups A, B, C, they make an attempt to shows that Group C which experienced the most stress would have the same age at death distribution has the group would no pathology (Group A). What needs to be stressed here is the importance of examining lesion frequencies in relationship to mortality and, more generally, of the use of all told indicators of stress. <p> A second concern deals with stature and poor health. As previously noted, growth stunting is often considered as indicating under nutrition secondary to factors such as poor dietary intake and high disease loads in both contemporary and passed populations. Wood et al. suggests, in contrast, that means stature decreases with decreased environmental stress and intimate broad applicability (see Wood et al: 359). The fundamental flawed here is an altogether unsubstantiated view of the relationship between environmental conditions, human growth response, and mortality. Wood et al. suggests that short children are inherently frailer than tall children. Stunted children do indeed consistently suffer from increased morbidity and mortality. Whereas there is an increased risk of death and stunted individuals, the association between stunting and mortality is based on the prerequisite that stunted individuals have been exposed to environmental stress that has robbed them of nutrient reserves. <p> Wood et al. makes the mistake of not focusing on bio-ecological process is akin to the implication that those who visited physician are frail because of some inherent propensity to meet with the physician. <p> There are three processes to suggest as possible explanations for the association between early stress in decreased mean age at death: 1) consistent individual-level variation in biological susceptibility to physiological pertubation 2) a biological-damage hypothesis (early stress decreases physiological resistance) 3) a social-status-differentiation/social-susceptibility process <p> There is no known situation in which a clearly advantage group, living or past, has more hypoplasia and a disadvantaged group, not to mention any situation in which an advantage group has exceedingly high hypoplasia rates and the disadvantaged group has none. Lukacs presents data showing that males and a situation of sun preference have fewer enamel defects than the disadvantaged neglected) females. "Better health makes for worse skeletons" is unsupported because it fails to account for biological processes. Their model is mathematically possible but unlikely because it has no biological basis. <p> In addition to turning to populations, three key advances are:</br> 1) a multiple-indicators approach to reconstructing prehistoric health</br> 2) the development of models for contextualizing skeletal indicators of stress</br> 3) the development of multiple lines of research to help clarify the cultural contexts of skull to lesions and biological processes leading to their development. <p> We can examine stress in both survivors and nonsurvivors. And in doing so we must think about processes to produce them. Whereas data from a single source is likely to open up the possibility of multiple interpretations, the use of multiple types of data greatly reduces number of likely interpretations in consequently the chances of error in an interpretation.
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