ABSTRACT
Introduction: environment, biology and culture The demography of disability and infirmitas is one which is heterogeneous and multi-faceted. Demography concerns itself largely with death, and with age and ageing of individuals and population groups – the influences and interdependence between causes of death and population behaviour. Disability and infirmitas are physical in nature, but to some degree also dependent on behaviour and can be observed as social constructs (as borne out by the chapters in this volume), yet frequently bound up in matters relating directly or indirectly to demographic dynamics, and the same factors which influence mortality. They are underpinned by the physical realities of environmental pressures and the process of ageing, on the one hand, and by culturally determined responses to health and ill-health, on the other. In this chapter I aim to outline the key physical attributes of ancient demographics on the body. I provide an outline of the environmental and other factors that would have impacted on longterm (generational) health and infirmitas: disease environments; water and food supply; resources for infant-nurture; living conditions and diet. The chapter explains the influence of these factors on a range of examples of ancient bodily health and infirmitas across the cities, villages and deserts around the Mediterranean. A comprehensive and medical account of the impact of demography and ageing on health in Antiquity is beyond the scope of this chapter, and of our source material. But it is hoped that this chapter will present, within the framework of environment, biology and culture, a background for the detailed case studies of cultural aspects of disability in Antiquity that follow.
