George J. Armelagos was a reader of bones.

Professor Armelagos (pronounced ar-MEL-ah-gos) was no osteomancer, as one who would divine the future by studying skeletal remains is known. Instead, the professor, a distinguished anthropologist who died on May 15 at 77, studied bones to divine the past.

His death, from pancreatic cancer at his home in Atlanta, was announced by Emory University, where he was the Goodrich C. White professor of anthropology.

Professor Armelagos was one of the founders of paleopathology, a discipline that stands at the nexus of biology, medicine, evolution, archaeology and culture. Where a forensic criminologist might examine a skeleton to determine how its owner died, Professor Armelagos was just as apt to examine it to determine how its owner lived, often many centuries ago.

Every malformation of bone, every pit in a skull, every layer of tooth enamel was to him and his colleagues a window onto the past — and, by extension, a window onto the health and nutritional habits of an entire bygone community.