Urbanization and Parasitism: Archaeoparasitology of South Korea

Dong Hoon Shin, Min Seo, Sang Yuck Shim, Jong Ha Hong, Jieun Kim

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

In parasitology, it has been observed that human populations in highly-populated areas are highly vulnerable to parasite infection. In this regard, the emergence of urbanized societies in history might have caused human parasite infection rates to increase. However, except for a few parasitological reports, the overall pattern of ancient parasitic infection still remains obscure for urbanized society in history. Since corroborative evidence thus far has been too insufficient to posit a relationship between historical urbanization and parasitism, a more detailed picture of the parasitism in urbanized as well as non-urbanized societies needs to be revealed. Recently, we have performed a series of scientific analyses on the specimens obtained from archaeological sites in order to answer these queries. The studies have focused mostly on archaeological specimens obtained from certain urban areas, such as palaces and residences, where pre-modern people from all walks of life once interacted. Using these specimens, we successfully revealed different patterns of ancient parasitism in urban and non-urban areas, thus allowing us to consider whether it actually varied by the degree of urbanization in history.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationBioarchaeology and Social Theory
PublisherSpringer Nature
Pages73-89
Number of pages17
DOIs
StatePublished - 2020

Publication series

NameBioarchaeology and Social Theory
ISSN (Print)2567-6776
ISSN (Electronic)2567-6814

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Keywords

  • Archaeoparasitology
  • Joseon
  • Korea
  • Parasitism
  • Silla
  • Urbanization

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