• Office: WRI A124
• Phone: 702 895 1881
• Fax: 702 895 4823
• Email: (debra.martin@unlv.edu)
• Website : (http://faculty.unlv.edu/dmartin/)
• Ph. D. : University of Massachusetts 1983
• Curriculum Vitae
• Skeletal and Dental Biology Lab

Interests: Biological Anthropology, paleopathology (violence, trauma, diet, nutrition, disease), skeletal biology, bioarchaeology, health of women and children in agricultural communities, biocultural adaptation to culture change, bone density and bone disease in contemporary populations, arid environments and health (Mexico, American Southwest, Southwest Asia, Northern Africa)

Patterns of disease and trauma in any population is never random. The causes and consequences of disease and early death need to be examined from a number of perspectives to capture the underlying causes. Biological anthropology presents the perfect set of interdisciplinary tools for studying when, how and why people get attacked or contract diseases. Drawing on methods from medicine, nutrition, demography, forensics, archaeology and cultural anthropology, long chronologies of health and disease can be reconstructed for populations from as far back as there are human remains up until the present. For example, with support from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, an investigation is underway that looks at the patterning of violent encounters (in the from of healed head wounds) for males and females in the ancient Greater Southwest. With funding from the Heinz Latin American Foundation, the origins and patterning of violence is being examined at the archaeological site of Casas Grandes in Mexico.