Convento di San Francesco a Folloni: the function of a Medieval Franciscan Friary seen through the burials

Background: The Franciscan Friary in Montella near Avellino in Southern Italy is of special interest because according to historical sources it was founded by St. Francis himself in AD 1221-1222. Human remains of several hundred individuals interred in the cloister walk have been unearthed during two excavation campaigns conducted in 2007-2008 and 2010. The environs of the friary have remained rural since the foundation preventing much modern contamination. The state of preservation of the skeletons is fair to good making a suite of analyses worthwhile. Results: The skeletons have been examined anthropologically and tissue samples have been subjected to radiocarbon dating, stable isotope measurements and trace element analyses by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry and Cold Vapour Atomic Absorption Spectrometry. Conclusions: The radiocarbon dates are consistent with the historical sources and show that the cemetery in the cloister walk has been in uninterrupted use from the foundation of the friary in AD 1221-1222 and until the cemetery went out of use in AD 1524. The anthropological investigations show that the individuals interred at the friary would have been shorter than other Italians from the same time, and it seems that tuberculosis was more prevalent than leprosy. Isotopic measurements show a mixed agricultural and pastoral diet and none of the individuals were consuming marine protein. Based on the trace element analysis it seems that the people resided mainly at two distinct geographical areas, one of which was Montella. One individual stands out from the rest, because he was born and raised at some third geographical location distinct from Montella and because he sports the second oldest radiocarbon date of AD 1050-1249 (two sigma calibrated range). This date is consistent with the first generation of the founders of the friary-perhaps one of St. Francis' fellow travellers from Assisi

Ancient genomes reveal a high diversity of Mycobacterium leprae in medieval Europe.

Studying ancient DNA allows us to retrace the evolutionary history of human pathogens, such as Mycobacterium leprae, the main causative agent of leprosy. Leprosy is one of the oldest recorded and most stigmatizing diseases in human history. The disease was prevalent in Europe until the 16th century and is still endemic in many countries with over 200,000 new cases reported annually. Previous worldwide studies on modern and European medieval M. leprae genomes revealed that they cluster into several distinct branches of which two were present in medieval Northwestern Europe. In this study, we analyzed 10 new medieval M. leprae genomes including the so far oldest M. leprae genome from one of the earliest known cases of leprosy in the United Kingdom-a skeleton from the Great Chesterford cemetery with a calibrated age of 415-545 C.E. This dataset provides a genetic time transect of M. leprae diversity in Europe over the past 1500 years. We find M. leprae strains from four distinct branches to be present in the Early Medieval Period, and strains from three different branches were detected within a single cemetery from the High Medieval Period. Altogether these findings suggest a higher genetic diversity of M. leprae strains in medieval Europe at various time points than previously assumed. The resulting more complex picture of the past phylogeography of leprosy in Europe impacts current phylogeographical models of M. leprae dissemination. It suggests alternative models for the past spread of leprosy such as a wide spread prevalence of strains from different branches in Eurasia already in Antiquity or maybe even an origin in Western Eurasia. Furthermore, these results highlight how studying ancient M. leprae strains improves understanding the history of leprosy worldwide

Ancient genomes reveal a high diversity of Mycobacterium leprae in medieval Europe.

Studying ancient DNA allows us to retrace the evolutionary history of human pathogens, such as Mycobacterium leprae, the main causative agent of leprosy. Leprosy is one of the oldest recorded and most stigmatizing diseases in human history. The disease was prevalent in Europe until the 16th century and is still endemic in many countries with over 200,000 new cases reported annually. Previous worldwide studies on modern and European medieval M. leprae genomes revealed that they cluster into several distinct branches of which two were present in medieval Northwestern Europe. In this study, we analyzed 10 new medieval M. leprae genomes including the so far oldest M. leprae genome from one of the earliest known cases of leprosy in the United Kingdom-a skeleton from the Great Chesterford cemetery with a calibrated age of 415-545 C.E. This dataset provides a genetic time transect of M. leprae diversity in Europe over the past 1500 years. We find M. leprae strains from four distinct branches to be present in the Early Medieval Period, and strains from three different branches were detected within a single cemetery from the High Medieval Period. Altogether these findings suggest a higher genetic diversity of M. leprae strains in medieval Europe at various time points than previously assumed. The resulting more complex picture of the past phylogeography of leprosy in Europe impacts current phylogeographical models of M. leprae dissemination. It suggests alternative models for the past spread of leprosy such as a wide spread prevalence of strains from different branches in Eurasia already in Antiquity or maybe even an origin in Western Eurasia. Furthermore, these results highlight how studying ancient M. leprae strains improves understanding the history of leprosy worldwide

Chapitre premier. Les patronymes, révélateurs des migrations sur l’île de Bornholm (Danemark)

La société danoise est une société très stable en comparaison d’autres sociétés contemporaines industrialisées. Durant l’année 1978, seulement près de 4 % de la population a changé de comté (Statistisk Årbog, 1978). La population insulaire du comté de Bornholm est même plus stable que le reste de la population danoise, avec moins de 3 % d’expatriation. Cependant, même une fréquence aussi faible de migration peut conduire à la disparition de différences régionales dans les fréquences géniques,..

Pathogenesis of dental abscesses in a Medieval village community

Abstract. — Crude frequencies of pathological lesions are inappropriate measures of the disease load in populations known only from skeletal remains. Despite equal crude lesion frequencies, patterning of dental caries at the time of death was very different in males and females from Tirup, a Medieval Danish village. This paper reports on serious oral disease — abscesses — in 1 63 skeletons of adults whose sex has been determined. The skeletons were excavated from one cemetery dating to AD 1 150 - 1350. The only burial place for a small peasant community that left no other trace of its existence other that the remains of its church. The totally excavated cemetery yielded direct evidence of 619 burials. Analyses are carried out using logistic regression. The risk of having dental abscesses at death was unrelated to age at death when corrected for the effect of dental caries and attrition. Results are not quite conclusive, but they indicate that variation in the occurrence of abscesses was primarily attributable to oral conditions, not systemic diseases such as generalized infections affecting the bones.Pathogénie des abcès dentaires dans une communauté villageoise médiévale Résumé. — La fréquence des lésions pathologiques est une mesure inappropriée pour apprécier l'impact de la maladie dans des populations connues seulement par des restes squelettiques. Malgré une fréquence égale de lésions, la formation des caries dentaires à la mort était très différente pour les hommes et les femmes de Tirup, un village médiéval danois. Cette étude porte sur ď importantes maladies buccales — des abcès — pour 163 squelettes d'adultes dont le sexe a été déterminé. Les squelettes furent exhumés d'un cimetière datant de 1 1 50- 1 350 AD. Il s' agît d'une petite communauté paysanne qui n' a laissée ď autre trace de son existence que la sépulture de son église. L'exhumation entière du cimetière a mis en évidence 619 enterrements. Les analyses ont été faites en utilisant la régression logistique. Le risque d'avoir des abcès dentaires au décès n'avait aucune relation avec l'âge, après correction des effets consécutifs aux caries dentaires et à l'usure. Les résultats ne sont pas tout à fait concluants, mais ils indiquent que la variation dans la présence d'abcès était pricipalement attnbuable aux conditions buccales et non à des maladies systématiques telles que des infections généralisées qui affectent les os.Boldsen Jesper L. Pathogenesis of dental abscesses in a Medieval village community. In: Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d'anthropologie de Paris, Nouvelle Série. Tome 10 fascicule 3-4, 1998. pp. 345-356

Distribution of Age at Menopause in Two Danish Samples

We analyzed the distribution of reported age at natural menopause in two random samples of Danish women (n = 176 and n = 150) to determine the shape of the distribution and to disclose any possible trends in the distribution parameters. It was necessary to correct the frequencies of the reported ages for the effect of differing ages at reporting. The corrected distribution of age at menopause differs from the normal distribution in the same way in both samples. Both distributions could be described by a mixture of two normal distributions. It appears that most of the parameters of the normal distribution mixtures remain unchanged over a 50-year time lag. The position of the distribution, that is, the mean age at menopause, however, increases slightly but significantly

Evidence for Maternal Inheritance of Female Height in a British National Sample

Analyses of the height variation in a large contemporary British sample found evidence for maternal inheritance of female height, because the mother-daughter correlation coefficient was significantly higher than the father-daughter value. Further evidence for a maternal effect came from the comparison of the daughter’s stature with the difference in parental heights. The maternal effect was estimated to be 1%