Developmental hip dysplasia of Giovanna from Austria (1548-1578) and her daughter Anna (1569-1584): some clarifications

I am pleased that paleopathology is starting to acquire general interest and that our paper on hip dysplasia of Giovanna from Austria and of her daughter Anna attracted comments. The lesions observed in the acetabular roofs of Giovanna had already been cited in a preliminary report, where an incomplete dislocation of the hip was diagnosed. The defect we described was only in the external acetabular roof of both women, with no lesions present in other parts of the acetabular cavities or in the femoral heads. Therefore, radiographs would probably not be helpful at this stage. We believe that the lesions of the acetabular roof of the pelvis of Giovanna and Anna are macroscopically evident, and that a diagnosis of mild developmental hip dysplasia is likel

MALIGNANT TUMOURS IN THE ARAGONESE SERIES OF SAINT DOMENICO MAGGIORE OF NAPLES (15th- 16th CENTURIES)

Cancer nowadays represents the second cause of death in advanced countries. However, there are only five cases of malignant soft tissue tumors in the paleopathological literature.1 The rarity of cancer in Antiquity is a highly debated problem and the main reasons are apparently the short life span of past populations, the scarcity of mummified remains and the technical difficulties for detecting neoplastic lesions in mummified tissues. Three ancient malignant tumors were identified in the Renaissance mummies of the Aragonese court (15th-16th centuries), that are preserved in the Basilica of Saint Domenico Maggiore in Naples. The autopsy performed on the natural mummy of Ferrante I of Aragon (1424-1494), revealed a well-preserved rectum. Histology showed crowded epithelial tumour cells, disposed in cords and glands, typical of a moderately differentiated mucinous adenocarcinoma. Strong immunoreactivity for pan-cytokeratin was shown and DNA analysis of K-RAS exons 1-2 demonstrated the presence of a mutation characteristic of sporadic colorectal cancer and associated with exposure to natural carcinogens present in the diet. The histological study of the natural mummy of Prince Luigi Carafa (1511-1576) revealed an extraordinarily well-preserved colon mucosa with an evident villous adenoma and strong immune-positivity for keratins and p53. In some points, clear invasion of the polyp stalk or of the submucosa was evident: this histological picture is that of a well differentiated adenocarcinoma at stage T1. The natural mummy of Duke Ferdinando Orsini (ca1490-1549), showed a wide destructive lesion of the right orbit and nose. Bone histology revealed large lacunae destroying the normal lamellar bone, containing clusters of cells with solid epithelial-like aspects and a darker margin “at palisade” (Fig. c, arrow), with strong positivity for pan-cytokeratin, typical of a destructive basal cell carcinoma. The small series of mummies from Naples, composed of eleven adults (10 males and 1 female) with well three cases of cancer in individuals between 55 and 71 years of age, is very important. Despite the limited number of specimens, the cancer prevalence of 27.0% that was found is similar to the 30.9% rate in modern countries. We can hypothesize that cancer must have been frequent after 50-60 years of age, at least in the Renaissance elite classes with peculiar alimentary and life style habits, as in this series of Spanish nobles. In conclusion, the statements according to which cancer was an extremely rare event in the past populations should be revised. Future accurate autoptic studies of mummies will be essential not only to diagnose new paleopathological cases, but also to clarify the mechanisms of ancient neoplastic progression

Many hands make light work: Collaborative CLIL Activities for university courses in Medieval funerary Archaeology

This paper describes the activities performed by the students of the course of funerary archaeology held at the Division of Palaeopathology of Pisa University in collaboration with the Institute for Computational Linguistics (ILC) of the National Research Council (CNR) in Pisa in the period April-June 2014. The lessons, which used a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach, were aimed at studying the funerary beliefs and burial practices in Italy and England in the Middle Ages. The 2014 course followed on from the courses of the year 2012 (focused on the more general issue of taphonomy; primary and secondary burials; single, double, or multiple burials), and 2013 (which examined the world of the ancient Romans and their burial customs of cremation and inhumation). The lessons were conducted by using extracts from self-contained specialized texts that were simple to read and that offered the basic concepts of medieval funerary archaeology. The students were supported by a reference text for funerary archaeology, which established the correct nomenclature to use when describing bodies, grave goods and tombs. Powerpoint slide presentations helped students break up the monotony of the text work and made the material more interesting and engaging. The slides were used to illustrate different types of burials in filled or empty spaces; the position of burials in both rural and urban environments; the disposition of the limbs in the burial; the rise of the Monasteries in the early Middle Ages and of the religious Orders of the Dominicans and Franciscans in the late Middle Ages. Each student was responsible for researching and reporting on a particular topic, and was supported by the use of information and communication techniques. Particular attention was devoted to the Books of Hours, important illuminated medieval manuscripts (containing psalms, short prayers and biblical quotations) that marked the different parts of the day and that were specifically composed for wealthy people. Classroom activities ranged from the simpler multi-matching and gap-filling exercises to the more complex tasks of providing definitions for given words, creating mind-maps, enriching a bilingual English-Italian glossary and providing contextualized examples for an English grammar book. Educational videos from the BBC or other channels and pertaining to the topics treated during the lessons were projected each time and were followed by direct questioning and more general conversation, to help students gain proficiency in oral communication. In the last three years, the Italian students from Pisa University have been working in collaboration with those of Ohio University on an excavation project carried out at the Field School in Medieval Archaeology and Bioarchaeology at Badia Pozzeveri (Lucca, Italy), to which the prestigious International journal SCIENCE dedicated a special issue and cover in December 2013. Finally, multidisciplinary elements were also included in the courses, by exploiting the information extracted from videos related to disciplines other than funerary archaeology, for example a BBC Channel 4 video describing the British meals of the day, the origins of which date back to medieval times

An English Grammar and a bilingual Glossary acting as complementary Tools for a CLIL-based Course

This paper describes how two complementary tools, an English grammar and a bilingual (Italian- English) glossary, can be expanded by University students attending a CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) course in which a funerary archaeology lecturer, an English language instructor and an archaeologist work together, integrating content and language. This work is part of a wider project carried out at the Division of Palaeopathology, History of Medicine and Bioethics, and approved by the University of Pisa. Starting from a sample of Italian and English monographic texts and other publications in printed or electronic form dealing with the subject of funerary archaeology and other related research areas (anthropology, field archaeology, anatomy and chemistry, which can provide new insights into past civilizations, cultures and practices so far undiscovered), we have extracted separate, preliminary lists of specialized terms. The students working alone, in pairs or in groups, are asked to expand these lists, tracking down additional words with their definitions and example sentences drawn from other authoritative sources. The information with specification of the authors and detailed bibliographical references should be written in independent appropriately labelled files, and sent to the computer analyst responsible for the computer software editing. The reading of various definitions at different levels of depth will enable the user to understand better, have a clearer and more exhaustive picture of a particular word, concept, or phenomenon. The glossary, addressed to the students who are at the same time creators and users of the product, can also be of interest to professors, scholars or translators who need to dispose of the specialised terms of funerary archaeology in a language other than their own. Many of the definitions and other types of useful information can be exploited to illustrate the different grammar points and structures of an easy-to-use on-line English intermediate-level grammar book, to study the grammar not in isolation but in meaningful contexts and real-life situations, to encourage the learners to become active explorers of the language. This ongoing grammar can be a valuable resource for students with minimum linguistic knowledge and competence, but also be useful to those wishing to improve the English language, enhancing their learning proficiency. Implementation of the two complementary products - grammar and glossary - will proceed together, contributing to the learning of funerary archaeology on the part of the students, both learners and creators of the two tools. As we know, the possibilities offered by the computer in terms of space, links, cross-references, etc. make it possible to organize and customize the material, meeting as much as possible the users\u27 needs. The technological tools increasingly available in the educational context support both the subject and language teacher in making the learning process easier and more engaging, helping clarify certain concepts in a non-traditional way in order to accomplish various instructional objectives

Paleonutrition and Paleopathology: Food and Disease at the Renaissance Courts of Naples and Florence

The study concerns 25 individuals from the Basilica of S. Domenico Maggiore in Naples (15th-17th centuries) and of 20 individuals from the Medici Chapels of the Basilica of S. Lorenzo in Florence (16th-17th centuries). The isotopes clearly reflect the large intake not only of meat but also of marine foods by the Italian aristocratic classes, especially from southern Italy, in the 15th-17th centuries. I present three important “clinical” cases. The left foot of Ferdinando I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (15491609), shows, at the peri-articular and articular surface of the interphalangeal joint of the hallux dorsum a lesion typical of chronic gout. High values of δ15N demonstrate a diet very rich in meat from terrestrial animals. This isotopic profile well correlates with the frequent attacks of gout referred by court chroniclers and with the diagnosis of chronic gout of the left big toe revealed by the paleopathological study. The skull of Don Filippino de’ Medici (1577-1582) shows nonsevere external hydrocephaly. The δ15N isotope values of don Filippino reveal a diet very rich in proteins of animal origin. The hereditary prince, was a frail and sickly child, affected by rickets. Probably for this reason, his parents and the court doctors forced him to eat more meat, considered at that time “the first source of physical strength”. Autopsy of the mummy of Ferrante I d’Aragona, king of Naples (1431-1494), revealed a moderately differentiated colon adenocarcinoma extensively infiltrating the muscles of the small pelvis. Ancient DNA amplification of the neoplastic cells by PCR in the mummy of Ferrante I evidenced a typical point mutation of the K-ras gene codon. The portraits of Ferrante reveal growing obesity from youth to maturity. Examination of the mummy of Ferrante, confirms his obesity. The paleonutritional data, with their high level of δ15N, show a massive intake of animal proteins. The alimentary “environment” of the Neapolitan court of the XV century and the sovereign’s habits, with his abundance of natural endogenous alkylating agents, well explain the K-ras mutation causing the tumor which killed the Aragonese king over five centuries ago

Considerations on Palaeodemography and Death in the British Community of Bagni di Lucca (19th -20th Centuries)

The English community of Bagni di Lucca obtained permission by Carlo Ludovico di Borbone, Duke of Lucca, to build and organize in 1842 an autonomous burial ground. This British cemetery operated until the 1930s, with an amount of 137 burials. The “Register of Burials – Baths of Lucca”, preserved in the Guildhall Library of London (Ms. 22,910), accurately reports: name, sex, age, marital status and residence, date of burial, name by whom the ceremony was performed and notes about social status and profession of the dead. It was possible, using these data, to obtain some palaeo-demographic information about age of death, in general adult or mature, but with presence of children and babies, about seasonality of deaths, generally in Summer, and sometimes about the cause of death

Combining different Technologies in a Funerary Archaeology content and language integrated Learning (CLIL) Course

The aim of this paper is to describe a project in which Italian undergraduate students at the Palaeopathology Division of Pisa University will attend a two-year Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) course combining the study of funerary archaeology with English as vehicular language. At the presence of a subject and language teacher working together, the trainees will use different types of technology including devices such as electronic blackboards and Word applications with user-friendly interfaces (Excel, Powerpoint, etc.), audio tapes, DVDs, videos taken from important satellite television programmes (BBC, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, etc.). The activities will range from reading parts of funerary archaeology texts scanned and put onto the computer, to gap-filling exercises by listening to a recording, matching words with their definitions, jumbled sentences, etc. A number of resources will be prepared by the learners, for example a bilingual glossary of archaeology terms with definitions extracted from authentic texts, as well as an English grammar with examples-in-context of the basic grammar items, to be exploited by the students of future courses. While performing the different tasks, the learners will be involved in the learning of funerary archaeology content, in improving their language skills, and in understanding how to use different technological tools. In the summer period at the end of the first year, more sophisticated technology will support the students during the explorations at an archeological site in the small village of Benabbio in northern Tuscany. In particular, the excavations of 14th century bodies on the one hand, and of corpses of people who were victims of the 1855 cholera epidemic on the other, will be carried out using surveying tools that can contribute to the understanding of the underground features. Such tools include geo-radars which help the archaeologists collect information about the location of past human cultures in a particular area; G.I.S., the science that allows to view, interpret, and visualize data concerning maps, globes, reports, and charts; aerial photography, by which it is possible to detect traces of buried structures that are not visible at ground level. Finally, some of the bodies will be submitted to computerized axial tomography (C.A.T.) for a more thorough investigation that can reveal and clarify certain types of information that would have been impossible to obtain in the past. Understanding of the different technologies used for geographic inquiry and treatment of the bodies will also be part of the content course in funerary archaeology held by the subject teacher. The students will be able to experiment the tools, exchanging ideas, sharing experiences, and speaking about their work with British peers from the United Kingdom, who are spending the summer period at Benabbio on exchange courses, and graduating in funerary archaeology in their country. The final exam will consist of a dissertation written in English in which the students will describe particular tasks in which they have been involved, as well as an oral Powerpoint presentation illustrating a particular phase of the excavation activities. Technology-supported tools have become increasingly available in educational contexts, allowing trainees to learn from practical experiences, to be engaged in authentic tasks and build up their self confidence for communication in real life situations

Step-by-step Organization of a University CLIL Course

This paper reports on the organization of CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) University courses in funerary archaeology held at the Division of Palaeopathology of Pisa University. We outline the different steps involved in the practical implementation of the proposed approach, which include choice of topic, linguistic content, tasks and strategies, and we describe the ways in which CLIL can be used both in the classroom and in archaeological fieldwork excavations for teaching of the discipline and practical experience with leading scholars in the field. Each two-hour lesson slot is divided into four parts, devoted to both the receptive (reading, listening) and productive (writing, speaking) skills, which constantly expose the students to language, helping them understand the contents of the discipline. It is necessary to take into account the additional difficulties students attending the courses might have, which are due to their having to learn basic and academic language skills and new subject concepts at the same time. All the material relevant to the course is simplified and adapted to the needs and language of the students, who are supported by authentic materials in the form of text-books, articles, tutorials, illustrations, audio and video recordings, and by a number of activities ranging from gap-filling exercises, matching words with their definitions, jumbled sentences, sentence formation, preparation of posters, powerpoint demonstrations. The trainees are also involved in increasing an ongoing bilingual English-Italian glossary and contextualized English grammar. Working individually, then in pairs and in small groups, they are responsible for the different areas of the discipline. Funerary archaeology is the study of death, ancient burials and human skeletal remains, body disposal, etc., and includes skeleton anthropology, bone diagenesis, taphonomic anthropology, as well as other features comprising excavation phases, techniques and tools employed, field archaeology

Renaissance mercurial therapy in the mummies of Saint Domenico Maggiore in Naples: a palaeopathological and palaeotoxicological approach

AbstractThis study was designed to evaluate the use of mercury therapy in the Italian noble classes of the Renaissance through the toxicological analysis of hair content. Mercury has stability and a long half-life in hair, representing a great resource not only for forensic toxicological analysis but also for archaeological research on mercurial exposure in past populations. The hair of fourteen mummified individuals of the Aragon and vice-royal court of Naples, buried in the Neapolitan Basilica of Saint Domenico Maggiore (15–18th centuries), was analysed by atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) and flame emission spectroscopy (FES). Out of the fourteen individuals, four presented mercury concentrations in the hair washing liquid indicating external perimortem application (in one case clearly linked to embalming, in three cases probably associated with topical therapeutic practices), three showed no traces of mercury, and seven had mercury values in hair ranging from 411 to 47 ppm, which indicate prolonged exposure in life to the metal. The historical identification of most of the mummified bodies with important nobles of Naples has allowed to compare the toxicological analyses with the nosography of the individuals and with the palaeopathological results deriving from the direct study of their bodies. Prolonged exposure in life to the metal was most likely due to mercurial anti-syphilitic therapy, as a consequence of its indiscriminate use in Renaissance therapies and, indirectly, as an effect of the extraordinary spread of venereal syphilis in the Italian upper classes during the "epidemic" phase of the disease