Research Projects
Bioarchaeology of leprosy: a global perspective on a declining disease
A research project of the Department of Archaeology.
Background
This is a two year project to write a book with the above title to be published by the University Press of Florida. It is funded by the Leverhulme Trust and is a Major Research Fellowship awarded to Professor Charlotte Roberts.
Leprosy has a long history dating back to Indian historical sources of 600 BC, and skeletal evidence of 250 BC and the 4th century AD from archaeological sites in Egypt. Virtually all parts of the world have experienced leprosy in the past and it remains a public health problem in 24 countries today. While medical historical data can sometimes prove problematic to interpret, skeletal changes of leprosy are well known and have been recorded by palaeopathologists from many contexts, time periods, and geographic areas.
This book will bring data on the global experience of leprosy through time together, something that has not been done before, and a multidisciplinary bioarchaeological approach will be taken to understanding the impact of the disease on humans past and present.
Published Results
Books: authored
- Roberts, C.A. & Manchester, K. 2005. Archaeology of disease. Stroud: Sutton Publishing.
- Roberts, C.A. & Cox, M. 2003. Health & disease in Britain: from prehistory to the present day. Gloucester: Sutton Publishing.
- Roberts, C.A., Lewis, M.E. & Manchester, K. 2002. The Past and Present of Leprosy. Archaeological, historical, palaeopathological and clinical approaches. Oxford: Archaeopress. (View publication online)
Conference contributions
- Roberts, C.A. 2002, The antiquity of leprosy in Britain: The skeletal evidence, in Roberts, C.A., Lewis, M.E. & Manchester, K. eds, British Archaeological Reports International Series 1054: The past and present of leprosy. Archaeological, historical, palaeopathological and clinical approaches. International Congress on the Evolution and palaeoepidemiology of the infectious diseases 3 (ICEPID), 26th-31st July 1999. Bradford University, Archaeopress, Oxford, 213-222. (View publication online)
- Schultz, M. & Roberts, C.A. 2002, Diagnosis of leprosy from an English later Medieval leprosy hospital using histological analysis, in Roberts, C.A., Lewis, M.E. & Manchester, K. eds, British Archaeological Reports International Series 1054: The past and present of leprosy. Archaeological, historical, palaeopathological and clinical approaches. Proceedings of the International Congress on the Evolution and palaeoepidemiology of the infectious diseases 3 (ICEPID). Bradford University, Archaeopress, Oxford, 89-110. (View publication online)
Books: sections
- Roberts, C.A. 2000. Infectious disease in biocultural perspective. Past, present and future work in Britain. In Infectious disease in biocultural perspective. Past, present and future work in Britain. Cox, M. & Mays, S. London: Greenwich Medical Media. 145-162.
