Constructing a conversation about the current state of research in bioarchaeology in the U.S. Southeast is a considerable undertaking. Two earlier volumes—Biocultural Adaptations in Prehistoric America (Blakely 1977) and What Mean These Bones (Powell et al. 1991)—might be hard to surpass. Nonetheless, the editors of Bioarchaeology of the American Southeast set out to do just that.

The volume is divided into two parts. In the first, “Context and Culture History in Bioarchaeology,” the authors of four chapters approach themes well recognized in Southeast bioarchaeology: biodistance, health transitions, and regional and gender variation in pathological expression. Despite the culture history underlayment, however, each of the chapters brings new technologies and theoretical conversations that weave new tapestries into our working understandings of life in the past. Steven Byers and Rebecca Saunders approach statistical measures (e.g., Fisher's exact, Fisher-Freeman-Halton) to help mitigate issues for estimating biodistance from small or poorly preserved skeletal samples. Ginesse Listi examines health within Late Woodland period Coles Creek culture groups through two nonspecific indicators, and she situates the data within a biocultural context. She is particularly interested in the variation between groups exhibited for maize adoption and pre-maize stressors, finding unexpected trends at times. Tracy Betsinger and Maria Ostendorf Smith in their chapter and Mark Griffin in his chapter explore similar issues but with different methodological and theoretical foci. Betsinger and Smith consider the specific roles that sex, status role, and physiography play in the expression and patterns of carious lesion frequencies. They also explore the timing of focused maize agriculture and whether it occurred in all places at the same time, a theme shared with Listi and Griffin. Griffin integrates the current research on the importance of the oral environment in differing caries experiences. His review of the various influences on microbial balance of the oral cavity and their role in contributing to eventual dental caries experiences is excellent. It is a fine example of how the authors in this section of the book have integrated new technologies and theory with earlier approaches to discussing culture history and context.

The second part of the book, “Social Identities in Bioarchaeology,” takes on an area of investigation and interpretation that was not a focus of research in the earlier two syntheses of U.S. Southeast bioarchaeology. The six chapters in this part examine their study samples through the lens of social identity and osteobiography. One of the coeditors, Shannon Chappell Hodge, begins this part with a discussion of trophy taking in Archaic period Kentucky. She explores several theoretical interpretations for the motivations of interpersonal violence within Archaic period hunter-gatherer societies by focusing on an adult female who was scalped but who survived. Matthew Williamson presents a similar case in which an adult female from the King site in Georgia is buried with a series of artifacts usually attributed to warriors. His larger analysis focuses on the intersection of status at the King site and skeletal pathology, and he finds that status was not a shield for good health. Della Collins Cook's examination of cranial modification considers the intersection of the method of shaping, intentionality, and associated pathology of several individuals. Lynn Funkhouser and Barbara Hester report that life for European colonists in Nouveau Biloxi was characterized by episodic stress, particularly for the young, interspersed with epidemic disease. The other coeditor, Kristina Shuler, and coauthors provide a rich discussion of the integration of GIS, ethics, community engagement, and the CRM bioarchaeology recovery and analysis of threatened properties. Their study samples came from cemeteries at the Citadel in Charleston containing Confederate soldiers. Their analysis addresses material culture, mortuary behavior, spatial patterning, age and sex, and health. They find that the record of pathological markers does not fit the archival pattern of health in nineteenth-century Charleston, a finding reminiscent of that of Funkhouser and Hester. The final chapter by William Stevens and coauthors assesses an unusual deposit of materials, including human skeletal parts, from the University of South Carolina medical school. They situate the remains within the social and historical context of the antebellum and Reconstruction-era South to discuss the separation of some individuals from society by ethnicity, poverty, and circumstance. Their discussion adds yet another case of the often-clandestine activities of nineteenth-century medical colleges, supplementing the earlier reported book on the Medical College of Georgia (Blakely and Harrington, Bones in the Basement: Postmortem Racism in Nineteenth-Century Medical Training, 1997).

Bioarchaeology of the American Southeast adds new data from bioarchaeological investigations in the Southeast while engaging emerging and innovative theoretical approaches and new technologies. The resulting set of discussions gives new insights about those who lived in the region before modern times. The book is well suited for classroom use and will be appreciated by professional bioarchaeologists and others interested in the American Southeast.