History of Science 2220 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Prehistoric Medicine, Radiocarbon Dating, Periodontitis

• School: Western University
• Department: History of Science
• Course: History of Science 2220
• Professor: Dorotea Gucciardo

Document Summary

Epidemic: wide spread occurrence of a particular disease, overused in media: infectious diseases over a particular time, pandemic. Not all people left the pre-historic period at the same time. Britain remained pre-historic long after egypt was out of it. Study of disease in humans and animals of pre-historic and ancient times. Use combination of evidence, primary and secondary: primary sources: artifacts, bones, paintings, teeth, ashes, dried up poop, secondary sources: written material that has been created since discovery of these. Referring to carbon 14 dating (method used to date bones) Believe they can date material up to 50k years old with good accuracy. Examine prevalent of disease within primates to distract information to see how disease would have been like for prehistoric people. They also look at preserved soft tissue: bog people: acid preserved tissues of bodies and were left relatively in tact. Helped learned scelosis, persculosis and gum disease: ice man: otzi the ice man.