INTRODUCTION By Alan C. Swedlund and George J. Armelagos
Societies in transition are frequently faced with new settings and/or new pathogens which require a response in order for the affected group to thrive or survive. The adaptive responses that such societies make in the face of transition is a neglected topic in the current literature. Several volumes have appeared over the past decade (e. g., Logan and Hunt 1978 ; Foster and Anderson 1978 ; Stanley and Joske 1980 ; Rothschild 1981 ; Romanucci-Ross et al. 1983 ; Chakraborty and Szathmary 1985 ; Cohen and Armelagos 1984 ; Janes et al. 1986) that deal with selected aspects of the health and disease of human populations. This volume is an outgrowth of our growing recognition that many human populations are undergoing rapid change today, a recogniton that leads us to question the nature of transitions in both historical and prehistoric populations. In this book a group of investigators identify topics and present original research on aspects of disease in populations in transition. These researchers first came together in the fall of 1985 to discuss various common concerns and issues. The articles were subsequently revised and rewritten for this book.