American Anthropologist· 2026Q1
Medical Archaeology and the Research Roads of Global Health in the Age of Eugenics
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- Q1SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
This article reveals how medical doctors and archaeological excavations were integral to early global health research and infrastructures, particularly in institutional networks and research routes that foreshadowed unethical human experimentation programs, linking these historical practices to contemporary debates on DNA biosampling and applied health.
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Key points
- Archaeological excavations were linked to early global health research and infrastructures through medical doctors and institutional networks.
- Historical research routes and racialized pathologies foreshadowed unethical human medical experimentation programs sponsored by US institutions.
- Contemporary debates on DNA biosampling and applied health could benefit from understanding the historical entwining of archaeology, medicine, and 'race science'.
- Archaeologists have historical inheritances and responsibilities related to these entanglements, necessitating a deeper understanding for contemporary ethical practice and repair.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
ABSTRACT This article centers on an underexplored dimension of archaeology—the role of medicine and medical doctors in the ways archaeological excavations connected at times with early global health research and infrastructures. Its case studies focus on archaeology's role in the institutional networks, research routes, and racialized pathologies that foreshadowed a specific case of an egregious human medical experimentation program carried out in Guatemala by US institutional sponsors and medical professionals, examining these realities as structures as well as events. Some of the most pressing issues in archaeology today include debates about DNA biosampling and related areas of contemporary applied health implications that could be much more ethically and effectively anchored if grasped from a deeper view of how the fields of archaeology, medical science, and “race science” have long been entwined and have shifted over time. The article closes by discussing why it matters for contemporary practitioners to be familiar with these histories and their entanglements in infrastructures and networks of imperial race science. Archaeologists today have particular historical inheritances and responsibilities in need of understanding, and perhaps something important to contribute to the collective work of repair.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. American Anthropologist, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: History
HistoryArts and Humanities