Care-giving is an activity that has been practiced by all human societies. From the earliest societies through to the present, all humans have faced choices regarding how people in positions of dependency are to be treated. As such, care-giving, and the form it takes, is a central experience of being a human and one that is culturally mediated. Archaeology has tended to marginalise the study of care, and debates surrounding our ability to recognise it within the archaeological record have often remained implicit rather than a focus of discussion. These 12 papers examine the topic of care in past societies and specifically how we might recognise the provision of care in archaeological contexts and to open up an inter-disciplinary conversation, including historical, bioarchaeological, faunal and philosophical perspectives. The topic of ‘care’ is examined through three different strands: the provision of care throughout the life course, namely that provided to the youngest and oldest members of a society; care-giving and attitudes towards impairment and disability in prehistoric and historic contexts, and the role of animals as both recipients of care and as tools for its provision.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Foundations and Approaches to the Study of Care in the Past
• Section 1: Care and the Life Course
  • Chapter 2: Childcare in the Past: The Contribution of Palaeopathology
  • Chapter 3: The “Terrible Tyranny of the Majority”: Recognising Population Variability and Individual Agency in Past Infant Feeding Practices
  • Chapter 4: Precious Things: Examining the Status and Care of Children in Late Medieval England through the Analysis of Cultural and Biological Markers
  • Chapter 5: That “Tattered Coat Upon a Stick” the Ageing Body: Evidence for Elder Marginalisation and Abuse in Roman Britain
• Section 2: Care, Impairment and Disability
  • Chapter 6: The Palaeolithic Compassion Debate – Alternative Projections of Modern-Day Disability into the Distant Past
  • Chapter 7: Setting the Scene for an Evolutionary Approach to Care in Prehistory: A Historical and Philosophical Journey
  • Chapter 8: “A Long Waiting for Death”: Dependency and the Care of the Disabled in a 19th Century Asylum
  • Chapter 9: Prayers and Poultices: Medieval Health Care at the Isle of May, Scotland, c. 430–1580 AD
• Section 3: Care and Non-Human Animals
  • Chapter 10: Towards a Zooarchaeology of Animal “Care”
  • Chapter 11: Rare Secrets of Physicke: Insect Medicaments in Historical Western Society
  • Chapter 12: Concluding Thoughts and Future Directions