Justice
What Can Our Bones Reveal About Urbanization?
The archeologist and author Brenna Hassett explains how cities shaped our skeletons.
By 2030, humans will be a predominantly urban species, with 60 percent living in cities, according to a prediction from the United Nations Human Settlement Programme. To get to this point, evolution of both human species and our lifestyles has changed rapidly over time. A shift in habitat, the birth of modern cities, and our continuous urban experiment has left, in archeological terms, piles and piles of bones that tell us a lot about our problems, both past and present.
In her new book, Built on Bones: 15,000 Years of Urban Life and Death, the archeologist and author Brenna Hassett explains how cities have made us the way we are. CityLab spoke with Hassett to find out more about what our bones reveal about the metropolitan past and future.