The Bioarchaeology of Dissection and Autopsy in the United States / Bioarchaeology and Social Theory (PDF)

Kenneth Nystrom is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the State University of New York at New Paltz, USA. He received his B.A. from the University of Minnesota-Duluth (1997), and his M.S. (1999) and Ph.D. (2005) from the University of New Mexico. He would characterize himself as a broadly trained bioarchaeologist. His early research focused on the Chachapoya of northern Perú where he investigated a range of topics including the reconstruction of mortuary behavior based on paleoentomology, trepanation and trauma, and the impact of Inca conquest on site-specific and regional-level genetic homogeneity using craniometrics. He has also conducted research on long bone cross-sectional geometry in Early Classic elites from Copan, Honduras and post-marital residence patterns among the Chiribaya of southern Perú utilizing craniometrics. His current focus is on African American and almshouse cemeteries from the 19th and 20th centuries in the United States. He grounds his research in the understanding that the biological and social world in which we live is incorporated into and onto our bodies. From this perspective he has examined dental health, trauma, and sex-specific post-manumission migration using strontium isotopes in a historic African American cemetery from New York. Additionally, he considered how the postmortem examination of a young woman from this cemetery can inform on our understanding of how social identity of African Americans was constructed during the 19th century. He is currently analyzing evidence of dissection and surgical experimentation from the Erie County Poorhouse from this same perspective.