What Lies Beneath Those Urban Settings? The Value of Bioarchaeology in Understanding the Complexities of Urban Health and Well-Being

Roberts, Charlotte Ann

At the time of writing, the COVID-19 pandemic has been confirmed in nearly five million people and there have been over 300,000 deaths worldwide. This pandemic is caused by a novel virus, but the vulnerabilities that it reveals, including those produced by or associated with urban contexts, and the responses that we as local and global communities have mounted in the face of this crisis are not entirely new. This chapter draws on examples from the current pandemic and examines the urban-rural divide with respect to health that exists today, the actions people took during past pandemics in both urban and rural contexts to prevent the spread of disease, and ongoing international efforts to improve human health and well-being. Though much of the world’s attention is justifiably focused currently on the COVID-19 pandemic, there are important lessons to be learned about how crises, structural inequalities, and variations in health were produced by and affected past populations. The chapters in this volume amply demonstrate how much we can learn about these phenomena through bioarchaeological research in and near urban settings and how much work still remains to be done.