An Anglo-Saxon execution cemetery at Walkington Wold, Yorkshire

This paper presents a re-evaluation of a cemetery excavated over 30 years ago at Walkington Wold in east Yorkshire. The cemetery is characterized by careless burial on diverse alignments, and by the fact that most of the skeletons did not have associated crania. The cemetery has been variously described as being the result of an early post-Roman massacre, as providing evidence for a ‘Celtic’ head cult or as an Anglo-Saxon execution cemetery. In order to resolve the matter, radiocarbon dates were acquired and a re-examination of the skeletal remains was undertaken. It was confirmed that the cemetery was an Anglo-Saxon execution cemetery, the only known example from northern England, and the site is set into its wider context in the paper

The bioarchaeology of tuberculosis: a global view on a re-emerging disease

Tuberculosis has plagued humans and animals for thousands of years. Though apparently in decline with the advent of effective chemotherapy and improved living conditions, sanitation, and diet during the first half of the 20th century, TB has reawakened in both developed and developing countries, particularly among susceptible populations with immunodeficiency disorders. These authors offer a detailed study of the history of this persistent and important infectious disease, covering its etiology, epidemiology, and pathogenesis. Beginning with a discussion of the epidemiology, clinical signs and symptoms of tuberculosis, and skeletal changes associated with it, Roberts and Buikstra examine evidence for the disease through time in both human and nonhuman populations. They devote particular attention to the paleopathological evidence of tuberculosis throughout human history found in both Old and New World archaeological sites. With a review of the hard evidence of tuberculosis from the archaeological record (skeletons showing evidence of the disease), they focus on how and why the disease developed in antiquity, its evolutionary routes, and how past populations treated it. The authors augment clinical data with evidence from a variety of sources including art and documentary materials. A concluding chapter addresses the current reemergent status of the disease and its future prospects. The authors reveal that tuberculosis has repeatedly increased over time as societies have become more complex socially, economically, and politically. Their detailed presentation of the clinical data on tuberculosis and its many causative factors brings together information from a wealth of sources worldwide and mounts an argument rich in paleoepidemiological and historical data that challenges accepted dogma about the conquest of TB by modern technology. Their account will be of interest to anthropologists, archaeologists, biologists, and sociologists as well as clinicians and medical historians

The evidence for tuberculosis in the Eastern Mediterranean:past and current research and future prospects

A celebration of Patricia Smith’s distinguished career, the papers presented in this Festschrift focus on a region and research topics that have fascinated and challenged her since her student days. The broad intellectual and geographic range covered by the papers offers a wealth of information and insights into the biology of past and present populations of the Eastern Mediterranean, a region rich in history and human diversity. Contents: 1) The future of physical anthropology (Phillip L. Walker); 2) Dental development and life history in primates and a comparison of cuspal enamel growth trajectories in a specimen of homo erectus from Java (Sangiran s7-37), a Neanderthal (Tabun c1), and an early homo sapiens specimen (Skhul ii), from Israel (M. Christopher Dean); 3) Were there Neanderthals in the Levant? (Silvana Condemi); 4) Dental development and pathology from the Levantine Middle Palaeolithic: evidence from the Kebara and Qafzeh hominids (Anne-Marie Tillier ); 5) Tooth components in archaic homo sapiens/Neanderthal specimens from Israel and their taxonomic affiliation (Uri Zilberman); 6) Dental attrition: Neanderthals, Romans and Egyptians, and the question of where we go now (Don Brothwell); 7) A final Natufian population: health and burial status at Eynan-Mallaha (Fanny Bocquentin); 8) Morbidity and mortality in the late PPNB populations from Basta and Ba'ja (Jordan) (Michael Schultz, Tyede H. Schmidt-Schultz, Julia Gresky, Kerstin Kreutz, Margit Berner); 9) “What ceremony else?” Taphonomy and the ritual treatment of the dead in the pre-pottery Neolithic b mortuary complex at Kfar Hahoresh, Israel (Tal Simmons, Nigel Goring-Morris and Liora Kolska Horwitz); 10) Is house 12 at Bouqras a charnel house? (Deborah C. Merrett and Christopher Meiklejohn); 11) Times of stress at Çatalhöyük (Theya Molleson); 13) Artificial cranial deformation in the aceramic Neolithic Near East: evidence from Cyprus (Françoise Le Mort); 14) A retrospective view of cauterization: evidence from Anatolia (Metin Özbek); 15) Inter-group variation in long bone morphology: an osteometric and radiological study of past populations of Israel (Leonor Dujovny); 16) Human remains from the Nahal Tzeelim Cave, the Dead Sea area (Baruch Arensburg); 17) The EB IA burials of Bâb Edh-Dhrâ, Jordan: bioarchaeological evidence of metabolic disease (Donald J. Ortner, Evan M. Garofalo, Molly K. Zuckerman); A Roman-Byzantine population from Ghiv'at Shappira, Jerusalem (Israel) (Baruch Arensburg and Anna Belfer-Cohen); 18) Challenges in the study of health and disease in the Crusaders (Piers D. Mitchell); 19) The evidence for tuberculosis in the eastern Mediterranean: past and current research, and future prospects (Charlotte Roberts and Jane Buikstra); 20) The emergence of the zoonotic pathogens in the southern Levant (Gila Kahila Bar-Gal and Charles L. Greenblatt); 21) Bones, teeth and ancient DNA unravel major issues in Levantine bio-history (Israel Hershkovitz and Mark Spigelman); 22) From physical anthropology to molecular genetics: studies of Israeli populations in the 20th century (Batsheva Bonne-Tamir); 23) The genetic history of populations in the southern levant as revealed by y chromosome polymorphisms (Almut Nebel, Dvora Filon, Ariella Oppenheim and Marina Faerman); 24) Forensic anthropology in Israel (Tzipi Kahana and Jehuda Hiss)

The History of Tuberculosis from Earliest Times to the Development of Drugs

This chapter considers the primary evidence for tuberculosis (TB) in the past-in the remains of people themselves-chart the distribution of the infection through time from a global perspective, and consider historical data for the presence of the disease in the distant past. It examines remarkable new developments from biomolecular analyses of the tubercle bacillus in human remains that are currently illuminating aspects of the history of TB. Tuberculosis is now a conquered disease in the British Isles and the rest of the industrialised world. When historical data are available, they can potentially provide a window on frequency rates of TB, but the numbers of those actually dying from TB may be inaccurate. Scholars studying TB in our ancestors draw on a number of sources. The primary evidence derives from people themselves who were buried in cemeteries throughout the world that have been excavated over the years and that contribute to the understanding of humankind's long history

Cancers as Rare Diseases: Terminological, Theoretical, and Methodological Biases

Objective Was cancer a rare disease in the past? Our objective is to consider the various terminological, theoretical, and methodological biases that may affect perceptions of the rarity of cancer in the past. Materials and methods We discuss relevant malignant neoplastic biomedical and paleopathological literature and evaluate skeletal data. We selected 108 archaeological sites (n = 151 cancer cases) with published malignant neoplasms and that were amenable to calculating cancer crude prevalence. Furthermore, datasets from four medieval/postmedieval Portuguese and 12 postmedieval UK sites were used to compare age-adjusted rates for metastatic bone disease and tuberculosis. Results In the literature review, mean cancer crude prevalence (1.2 %; 95 % CI = 0.96–1.4) exceeded the threshold for a rare disease (RD). Age-standardized rates of MBD and TB were not markedly different in the sites surveyed. Conclusions Methodological, theoretical and historical factors contribute to assumptions that cancers were rare diseases. The assumption that cancers are extremely rare in the paleopathological literature was not fully supported. Cancer is a heterogeneous concept, and it is important to view it as such. If a disease is considered rare, we may fail to recognize it or dismiss it as unimportant in the past. Significance We present a re-evaluation of the idea that cancer is a rare disease. We present a more nuanced way of comparing rates of pathological conditions in archaeological contexts. Limitations Variation in the amount of useable information in published literature on malignant neoplasms. Suggestions for further research More large-scale studies of cancer in the past alongside comparative studies of cancer prevalence with other assumed rare diseases