Michael Pietrusewsky

Michael Pietrusewsky
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Michael verified their affiliation via an institutional email.
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Michael verified their affiliation via an institutional email.
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa | UH Manoa · Department of Anthropology

Ph.D.
Ikehara-Quebral R.M., Douglas M.T. (2021) Pietrusewsky, Michael. In: Smith C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology.

About

223
Publications
65,986
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Introduction
Michael Pietrusewsky is currently Professor Emeritus at the Department of Anthropology, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Michael does research in Bioarchaeology and Biological Anthropology. His current project is 'Bioarchaeology of Taiwan (East Asia) and the Mariana Islands (Western Pacific). He also has long-term interests in the physical/biological anthropology and bioarchaeology of the Pacific, Southeast Asia, and East Asia.
Additional affiliations
July 1990 - January 1991
University of Tokyo
Position
  • Professor
Description
  • Fulbright Scholar to Japan where I conducted research examining Jomon to modern day Japanese crania at universities and museums in Tokyo, Chiba, Sendai, Sapporo, Kyoto, and Fukuoka.
September 1980 - July 1981
University of Toronto
Position
  • Visiting Professor
Description
  • Teaching courses in physical anthropology.
February 2012 - March 2012
University of Otago
Position
  • Visiting Professor/Researcher
Description
  • Workshop on biological distance studies and study of late Lapita skeletons from Watom Island, New Britain, Papua New Guinea.
Education
September 1966 - June 1969
University of Toronto
Field of study
  • Anthropology
September 1962 - May 1966

Publications

Publications (223)
Article
Full-text available
Examining several indicators of oral/dental (dental caries, antemortem tooth loss - AMTL, alveolar defects, dental calculus, and dental attrition) and physiological (linear enamel hypoplasia-LEH) health, this study investigates biocultural implications of changes in subsistence in the earliest Neolithic and later Iron Age Taiwan. Two human archaeol...
Article
Full-text available
Previous investigations of health and lifestyle in the Mariana Islands indicated that the prehistoric inhabitants living on the smaller islands of this archipelago experienced more stress than those living on the larger islands. This paper expands on previous research by using one of the largest datasets (N = 385) now available for examining the he...
Article
Full-text available
Biological distance studies, especially those based on cranial and skeletal morphology, continue to provide physical anthropologists and bioarchaeologists with an exceptional set of mathematically based methods for understanding population relatedness and population history. Because of the demonstrated correlation between phenotypic and genotypic s...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
This paper reviews what is known about the peopling of the Pacific, and more specifically the origins of Polynesians, based on the application of multivariate statistics to measurements recorded in crania from the Pacific-Asia region. Craniometric analyses demonstrate the presence of two great divisions, one that contains all the cranial series fro...
Poster
Full-text available
W.W. Howell’s craniometric online data provide broad world-wide coverage of cranial variation. However, there are significant gaps in its geographic and temporal coverage. One region of the world that is particularly underrepresented is the Asia-Pacific region, an area that encompasses the islands of Oceania (Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia),...
Presentation
Full-text available
In this presentation I review what we know about the peopling of the Pacific, and more specifically the origins of Polynesians, based on the application of multivariate statistics to measurements recorded in crania from the Pacific-Asia region. Previous analyses demonstrate the presence of two great divisions, one that contains all the cranial seri...
Article
Full-text available
Given their similar morphology and gene-flow histories, determining whether an unidentified cranium found in the Philippines is Japanese or Filipino presents a challenge. Two different analyses are under-taken. First, discriminant function (DF) analyses are applied to 295 crania using 22 measurements for distinguishing between: 1) males and females...
Article
Full-text available
Indian cultural influence is remarkable in present-day Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA), and it may have stimulated early state formation in the region. Various present-day populations in MSEA harbor a low level of South Asian ancestry, but previous studies failed to detect such ancestry in any ancient individual from MSEA. In this study, we discover...
Preprint
Full-text available
Indian cultural influence is remarkable in present-day Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA), and it may have stimulated early state formation in the region. Various present-day populations in MSEA harbor a low level of South Asian ancestry, but previous studies failed to detect such ancestry in any ancient individual from MSEA. In this study, we discover...
Article
Full-text available
Micronesia began to be peopled earlier than other parts of Remote Oceania, but the origins of its inhabitants remain unclear. We generated genome-wide data from 164 ancient and 112 modern individuals. Analysis reveals five migratory streams into Micronesia. Three are East Asian related, one is Polynesian, and a fifth is a Papuan source related to m...
Article
Full-text available
Sublime expression of three ectocranial occipital superstructures (OSSs)—occipital torus tubercles (TOTs), retromastoid processes (PRs), and posterior supramastoid tubercles (TSPs)—is virtually restricted to Oceania, with epicenters in the Mariana Islands, Tonga, Mocha Island, and perhaps other Oceanic locales such as the West Sepik Coast of New Gu...
Article
Full-text available
Skeletal and dental indicators (e.g., stature, linear enamel hypoplasia, cribra orbitalia, trauma, dental pathologies, and other evidence of disease) recorded in 45 subadult and 36 adult skeletons from the NHaa 1 site at Ha'atuatua, Nuku Hiva, northern Marquesas, are used to examine the health, diet, and lifestyle of precontact Marquesans during th...
Article
Angkor Borei is a protohistoric (ca. 500 BCE − 500 CE) site in southern Cambodia (Takeo Province), on the western edge of the Mekong Delta. Cambodia’s protohistoric period, concurrent with the Iron Age elsewhere in mainland Southeast Asia, is a period characterised by major socio-political transformation: early state formation, incorporation into t...
Article
Full-text available
DNA recovery from ancient human remains has revolutionized our ability to reconstruct the genetic landscape of the past. Ancient DNA research has benefited from the identification of skeletal elements, such as the cochlear part of the osseous inner ear, that provide optimal contexts for DNA preservation; however, the rich genetic information obtain...
Article
Using a variety of skeletal and dental indicators (e.g., stature, linear enamel hypoplasia, cribra orbitalia, infection, trauma, dental path-ologies) recorded in 33 adult and 11 subadult skeletons from the To-At-36 site at Ha'ateiho, Tongatapu, this study examines the health, diet, and lifestyle of precontact Tongans during the Tongan Chiefdom Peri...
Preprint
Full-text available
DNA recovery from ancient human remains has revolutionized our ability to reconstruct the genetic landscape of the past. Ancient DNA research has benefited from the identification of skeletal elements, such as the cochlear part of the osseous inner ear, that provide optimal contexts for DNA preservation; however, the rich genetic information obtain...
Article
Using a variety of skeletal and dental indicators (e.g., stature, linear enamel hypoplasia, cribra orbitalia, infection, trauma, dental pathologies) recorded in 33 adult and 11 subadult skeletons from the To-At-36 site at Ha‘ateiho, Tongatapu, this study examines the health, diet, and lifestyle of precontact Tongans during the Tongan Chiefdom Perio...
Chapter
Traditional morphometrics and the use of measurements have a long history in physical/biological anthropology. The application of multivariate statistical procedures, such as stepwise discriminant function (canonical) analysis and Mahalanobis distance, to traditional morphometric data, using either model-free or model-bound approaches, allows resea...
Article
Human cranial morphology, the study of the size and shape of the human skull, has a long history in biological anthropology, with applications to the subfields of paleoanthropology, bioarchaeology, and forensic anthropology. These subfields have evolved from descriptive and historical sciences, preoccupied with racial classification, to studies bas...
Chapter
Biological distance, or biodistance, is a measure of relatedness or divergence among groups separated by time and/or geography based on morphological variation (Buikstra et al. 1990). Biological distance studies, which are undertaken to reconstruct population history and to assess ancestry, dominated bioarchaeological research during the nineteenth...
Article
Ancient migrations in Southeast Asia The past movements and peopling of Southeast Asia have been poorly represented in ancient DNA studies (see the Perspective by Bellwood). Lipson et al. generated sequences from people inhabiting Southeast Asia from about 1700 to 4100 years ago. Screening of more than a hundred individuals from five sites yielded...
Article
Southeast Asia is home to rich human genetic and linguistic diversity, but the details of past population movements in the region are not well known. Here, we report genome-wide ancient DNA data from eighteen Southeast Asian individuals spanning from the Neolithic period through the Iron Age (4100–1700 years ago). Early farmers from Man Bac in Viet...
Preprint
Full-text available
Southeast Asia is home to rich human genetic and linguistic diversity, but the details of past population movements in the region are not well known. Here, we report genome-wide ancient DNA data from thirteen Southeast Asian individuals spanning from the Neolithic period through the Iron Age (4100–1700 years ago). Early agriculturalists from Man Ba...
Chapter
Full-text available
Although varied in its expression, the intentional removal of teeth during life has been documented in the living and in archaeological skeletal record worldwide. Several earlier studies indicate that tooth ablation was relatively common in Taiwan as well as in the Chinese mainland beginning with the Neolithic Age continuing into the Iron Age in th...
Chapter
This chapter documents tooth ablation in early Neolithic skeletons (ca. 5000–4200 BP) from the Nankuanli East (NKLE) site in southwestern Taiwan and makes comparisons to Iron Age skeletons (1800–500 BP) from Shihsanhang (SSH) in northwest Taiwan and other groups from Taiwan and surrounding regions. The most common pattern of tooth ablation in the N...
Chapter
Intentional dental modification was observed in Pre-Latte and Latte Period bioarchaeological samples from western Micronesia. These purposeful cultural alterations include multilinear incisions and horizontal abrading of labial tooth surfaces in the Mariana Islands and tooth blackening in Palau. To understand the biological impacts of intentional m...
Poster
Full-text available
Intentional modification of human teeth during life, a cultural phenomenon that has been practiced worldwide for several millennia, includes the purposeful alteration of a tooth’s shape or color. Some tooth modifications observed in the bioarchaeological record are readily discerned as deliberate (e.g., intricate patterns carved into the enamel sur...
Chapter
Full-text available
The lives of kings, poets, authors, criminals and celebrities are a perpetual fascination in the media and popular culture, and for decades anthropologists and other scientists have participated in 'post-mortem dissections' of the lives of historical figures. In this field of biohistory, researchers have identified and analyzed these figures' bodie...
Article
Full-text available
In this paper, we examine the health, diet, and lifestyle of the early inhabitants of Fiji using non-specific and specific indicators of health recorded in 42 adult and six subadult skeletons excavated at the Sigatoka Sand Dunes site, VL 16/1, on Viti Levu, one of the largest samples of prehistoric skeletons from Fiji. Because the dates of the Siga...
Article
Full-text available
Mainland Southeast Asia underwent dramatic changes after the mid-first millennium B.C.E., as its populations embraced new metallurgical and agricultural technologies. Southeast Asians transformed their physical and social environments further through their participation in international maritime trade networks. Early state formation characterized m...
Chapter
Full-text available
Two multivariate statistical procedures, stepwise discriminant function analysis and Mahalanobis' distance, are applied to nine mandibular measurements recorded in Neolithic (Nankuanli East site) and Iron Age (Shihsanhang) Taiwanese and comparative series from East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific for assessing the population history of Taiwan an...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In this talk, I briefly discuss how I became involved with Ban Chiang and what we have learned, in the decades since, from our studies of the approximately 142 human skeletons (2100 B.C. - 200 A.D.) excavated in 1974 and 1975 by the Thai Fine Arts Department and University of Pennsylvania. Specifically, I discuss what we know about health, diet, li...
Article
Full-text available
Estimating stature from skeletonized remains is one of the essential parameters in the development of a biological profile. A new procedure for determining skeletal height (SKH) incorporating the vertical space height (VSH) from the anterior margin of the sacral promontory to the superior margins of the acetabulae for use in the anatomical method o...
Chapter
Full-text available
Disseminating what is currently known about the skeletal biology of the ancient Rapanui and placing it within the wider context of Polynesian skeletal variation, this volume is the culmination of over thirty years of research into the remotely inhabited Easter Island. Compiling osteological data deriving from Rapanui skeletal remains into one succi...
Chapter
Full-text available
Two multivariate statistical procedures, stepwise discriminant function analysis and Mahalanobis’ distance, are applied to nine mandibular measurements recorded in Neolithic (Nankuanli East site) and Iron Age (Shihsanhang) Taiwanese and comparative series from East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific for assessing the population history of Taiwan an...
Article
Full-text available
This study examines the health and lifestyle of some of Taiwan’s earliest Neolithic inhabitants using skeletons from the Nankuanli East site (c. 5000–4200 BP) from the Tainan Science Park in southwestern Taiwan. Two indicators of health, cribra orbitalia and adult stature, and evidence of dental staining are reported for the first time. Comparisons...
Article
The early inhabitants of the Mariana Islands encountered numerous challenges that likely affected their health, including island size, vulnerability to natural disasters, availability of resources, and shifts in climate. Other factors that can lead to differences in health include biological sex, social status, diet, and genetic factors (e.g. host...
Chapter
Full-text available
Two multivariate statistical procedures, stepwise discriminant function analysis and Mahalanobis’ distance, are applied to nine mandibular measurements recorded in Neolithic (Nankuanli East site) and Iron Age (Shihsanhang) Taiwanese and comparative series from East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific for assessing the population history of Taiwan an...
Presentation
Full-text available
This conference presentation provides historical context and reviews what studies of the 142 human skeletons (2100 B.C. - 200 A.D.) excavated in 1974 and 1975 by the Thai Fine Arts Department and University of Pennsylvania, previously on loan to the University of Hawaii at Manoa, have revealed.
Article
The invention and development of next or second generation sequencing methods has resulted in a dramatic transformation of ancient DNA research and allowed shotgun sequencing of entire genomes from fossil specimens. However, although there are exceptions, most fossil specimens contain only low (~ 1% or less) percentages of endogenous DNA. The only...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In this study, we examine the health and way of life of some of Taiwan's earliest Neolithic peoples through studies of skeletons from the Nankuanli East (NKLE) site. The NKLE site is one of three oldest sites (ca. 4500-5000 BP) identified during salvage excavations in 2002-2003 in the Tainan Science Park (TSP) in Shanhua District, Tainan City, in s...
Article
Full-text available
Many bioarchaeological studies have established a link between increased dental caries prevalence and the intensification of agriculture. However, research in Southeast Asia challenges the global application of this theory. Although often overlooked, dental health of infants and children can provide a sensitive source of information concerning heal...
Technical Report
Full-text available
At the request of the Hawai‘i Department of Education and Scientific Consultant Services, Inc. (SCS), I examined the skeletons of two individuals (SIHP# 50-10-69-29501) placed in a lava tube under, what is now, the Ka‘ū High and Pāhala Elementary School Campus in Pā‘au‘au 1 Ahupua‘a, Ka‘ū District, Island of Hawai‘i [TMK: (3) 9-6-005:008 por.]. The...
Data
A preliminary assessment of the health and disease of 23 (15 males and eight females) of the most complete and best preserved adult skeletons from the Shi San Hang site (ca 1800-500 B.P.), Taipei Prefecture, Taiwan, is made. Overall, the prehistoric inhabitants of Shi San Hang were relatively healthy. Adult mean statures indicate that the Shi San H...
Data
Archaeologists have long debated the origins and mode of dispersal of the immediate predecessors of all Polynesians and many populations in Island Melanesia. Such debates are inextricably linked to a chronological framework provided, in part, by radiocarbon dates. Human remains have the greatest potential for providing answers to many questions per...
Chapter
A brief summary of studies in physical anthropology and skeletal biology of the Pacific and Polynesia is presented. Commencing with early studies in physical anthropology in the mid-nineteenth century, which included studies of living as well as prehistoric inhabitants of the Pacific, this survey focuses mainly on two topics: What studies of skelet...
Article
Archaeologists have long debated the origins and mode of dispersal of the immediate predecessors of all Polynesians and many populations in Island Melanesia. Such debates are inextricably linked to a chronological framework provided, in part, by radiocarbon dates. Human remains have the greatest potential for providing answers to many questions per...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Disarticulated human skeletal remains discovered in December 2009 during archaeological monitoring as part of the Reconstruction of Route 201 with Drainage Improvements Projects on Tinian, CNMI, are described. The remains are likely from a prehistoric site located near the House of Taga that was impacted several times during the Historic Period. Al...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Human skeletal remains from eleven burials selected from a total of twenty-one burials of prehistoric (Chamorro) cultural origin discovered during archaeological monitoring associated with the Reconstruction of Route 202 with Drainage Improvements Project (Tinian Route 202 Project) on Tinian Island, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Island are d...