“Captain of All These Men of Death”: An Integrated Case Study of Tuberculosis in Nineteenth-Century Otago, New Zealand

The South Island of New Zealand saw several major waves of migration in the mid-nineteenth century, predominantly from Europe but also with an ethnically distinct Chinese presence. The rural community of Milton, Otago, was a settler community established primarily by immigrants from the United Kingdom in search of a better quality of life. However, these settlers faced unique challenges related to surviving in an isolated location with very little infrastructure compared to their origin populations. In 2016, excavation was undertaken at St. John’s burial ground, Milton, with the object of using bioarchaeological methods to elucidate the lived experience of the first organized European settlement of this region, particularly in terms of health and disease. Here we present a case study of Burial 21 (B21), a male individual of known identity and a documented cause of death. We use biochemical and paleopathological methods to ground-truth his written history, which includes a period of invalidism due to tuberculosis, and discuss the implications of our findings for the community, provision of care, and quality of life in rural colonial New Zealand. He maha tonu ngā hekenga tāngata ki Te Waka a Māui i ngā tau kei waenga pū o te rau tau 1800, ko te nuinga nō Ūropi, heoi he tokomaha tonu nō Haina. Nā ngā manene nō Peretānia te hapori o Milton i whakatū ki Tokomairaro, i Ōtākou, i tō rātou hiahia ki tētehi oranga kounga ake i tō rātou oranga i Peretānia. Heoi, ko ētehi o ngā wero nui i tau ki ngā manene nei i ahu mai i te noho pūreirei ki tētehi wāhi kāore rawa ngā ratonga i rite ki ngā wāhi i ahu mai ai rātou. I te tau 2016, i hahu kōiwi i te urupā o Hato Hone, i Milton, hei whakamātau i te kaha o te ora me ngā momo mate i pā atu ki ngā tāngata whai i noho i te rohe nei. Nei rā he ripoata mō tētehi kua hahua, kua tapaina ko B21, he tāne ia, ko tōna ingoa kua mōhiotia, ko tōna mate kua āta tuhia. Kua āta whakamātauria ōna kōiwi me ōna toenga kiko mō ngā tohu ora me ngā tohu mate, kia mārama ai mena rānei e hāngai ana ngā tuhinga rongoā mōna, ngā mea i tuhia nōna e takatū ana, tae atu ki te wā i tūroro ia i te mate kohi, ki ngā tohu e puta ana i te mātauranga Rongoā-Koiora ō nāianei. Ka matapakina ngā hīrautanga o ngā kitenga me te māramatanga kua puta i tēnei rangahau e pā ana ki te hapori, ki ngā ratonga hauora, me te kounga o te oranga mō te hunga noho tuawhenua i tērā wā i Aotearoa

A Land of Plenty? Colonial Diet in Rural New Zealand

Colonial New Zealand was built on the ideal of creating better lives for settlers. Emigrants came looking to escape the shackles of the class-system and poor conditions in Industrial Revolution period Britain. Colonial propaganda claimed that most emigrants achieved their aims, but the lives the colonists actually experienced upon reaching New Zealand remain relatively unexplored from a biosocial perspective. In this paper we present a pilot study of stable isotope results of bone collagen from seven adults interred in the St. John’s Cemetery (SJM), Milton, New Zealand (ca. AD 1860–1900). We interpret the diet at Milton and broadly compare our isotopic results with contemporaneous samples from Britain. We show that, like contemporary Britain, the diet of our studied individuals was focused on C3 crops and terrestrial meat sources. Despite higher ????15N values in contemporary UK populations (which can simplistically be interpreted as indicative of higher meat intake), consideration of different local baselines makes it likely that this New Zealand population had relatively similar levels of meat intake. Interestingly marine resources did not form an important part of the Milton diet, despite the site's proximity to the ocean, hinting at the possible stigmatisation of local resources and the development of a European New Zealand (pākehā) food identity

Efficacy of novel recombinant fowlpox vaccine against recent Mexican H7N3 highly pathogenic avian influenza virus

Since 2012, H7N3 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has produced negative economic and animal welfare impacts on poultry in central Mexico. In the present study, chickens were vaccinated with two different recombinant fowlpox virus vaccines (rFPV-H7/3002 with 2015 H7 hemagglutinin [HA] gene insert, and rFPV-H7/2155 with 2002 H7 HA gene insert), and were then challenged three weeks later with H7N3 HPAI virus (A/chicken/Jalisco/CPA-37905/2015). The rFPV-H7/3002 vaccine conferred 100% protection against mortality and morbidity, and significantly reduced virus shed titers from the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts. In contrast, 100% of sham and rFPV-H7/2155 vaccinated birds shed virus at higher titers and died within 4 days. Pre- (15/20) and post- (20/20) challenge serum of birds vaccinated with rFPV-H7/3002 had antibodies detectable by hemagglutination inhibition (HI) assay using challenge virus antigen. However, only a few birds (3/20) in the rFPV-H7/2155 vaccinated group had antibodies that reacted against the challenge strain but all birds had antibodies that reacted against the homologous vaccine antigen (A/turkey/Virginia/SEP-66/2002) (20/20). One possible explanation for differences in vaccines efficacy is the antigenic drift between circulating viruses and vaccines. Molecular analysis demonstrated that the Mexican H7N3 strains have continued to rapidly evolve since 2012. In addition, we identified in silico three potential new N-glycosylation sites on the globular head of the H7 HA of A/chicken/Jalisco/CPA-37905/2015 challenge virus, which were absent in 2012 H7N3 outbreak virus. Our results suggested that mutations in the HA antigenic sites including increased glycosylation sites, accumulated in the new circulating Mexican H7 HPAIV strains, altered the recognition of neutralizing antibodies from the older vaccine strain rFPV-H7/2155. Therefore, the protective efficacy of novel rFPV-H7/3002 against recent outbreak Mexican H7N3 HPAIV confirms the importance of frequent updating of vaccines seed strains for long-term effective control of H7 HPAI virus.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Preservation of brain material in the archaeological record: A case study in the New Zealand colonial context

The preservation of soft tissue in the archaeological record is a rare phenomenon, especially in temperate contexts. Despite this, brain material is sometimes preserved in temperate climates, even in the absence of other soft tissue survival. However, little has been published on such finds. Archaeologists understandably have minimal experience in handling soft tissue, which may lead to brain material being left under-studied, or potentially unrecognised in situ. As such, there is a need to improve awareness of the preservation of brain material to further its identification, recovery, and analysis in the archaeological record. This paper examines preserved brain material identified in 8 of 77 unmarked colonial burials dating from the mid-to late-nineteenth century in New Zealand. This New Zealand case study provides an opportunity to consider brain preservation in archaeological contexts, and a means to study both in-life health and burial environment conditions. The preserved brain material was analysed macroscopically and microscopically using histological techniques to assess whether in vivo structures were preserved or pathogens affecting the individuals’ health could be identified. Analysis revealed that all preserved brains were diagenetically altered by the burial environment macroscopically in the form of shrinkage, fragmentation, colour change, and incorporation of exogenous microorganisms. Microscopically, neural structures were not observable in the tissue, however in five cases vasculature might be preserved. Preserved vasculature in archaeological contexts may prove useful in the investigation of blood- related disorders, such as sickle cell disease, aneurisms, and blood clotting. Spirochetes (bacteria responsible for multiple diseases in humans, including syphilis) were observed in one individual; however, this analysis could not determine if these were a species which would have caused pathology in life or a species endogenous to the soil and incorporated after death. Importantly, no correlation between macroscopic and microscopic preservation was apparent, serving as a cautionary tale for archaeologists who may wish to analyse brain material in the future – microscopic analysis is necessary to fully assess preservation

Living and dying on the edge of the Empire: a bioarchaeological examination of Otago’s early European settlers

During the nineteenth century, New Zealand was promoted as a land of plenty, promising a ‘better life’, to encourage families to settle and develop the growing colony. This paper characterises the life-course of early settlers to New Zealand through historical epidemiological and osteological analyses of the St John’s burial ground in Milton, Otago. These people represent some of the first European colonists to Aotearoa, and their children. The analyses provided glimpses into the past of strenuous manual labour, repeated risk of injury, and oral and skeletal infections. Mortality of infants was very high in the skeletal sample and the death certificates outlined the varied risks of infection and accidents they faced. Osteobiographies of seven well-preserved adults demonstrated the detailed narratives that can be gleaned from careful consideration of individuals. The skeletal record indicates childhood stress affecting growth and risk of injury prior to migration. However, the historical record suggests that occupational risks of death to the working class were similar in the new colony as at home. The snapshot of this Victorian-era population provided by these data suggests that the colonial society transported their biosocial landscape upon immigration and little changed for these initial colonists

Childhood in Colonial Otago, New Zealand: Integrating Isotopic and Dental Evidence for Growth Disturbance and Oral Health

Experiences of childhood in colonial New Zealand are difficult to reconstruct from the historical record alone. Many of those who came to the colony were illiterate, and the Victorian tendency to avoid discussion of pregnancy and breastfeeding practices restricts our understanding of this important period. Bioarchaeological investigation, however, has the potential to illuminate the life stories of these first-generation Pākehā (European) settlers. Here we use isotopic evidence combined with dental pathology from children interred in a historic cemetery from Otago, New Zealand, to examine colonial childhood. We show how weaning practices in the colony differ from those experienced by their emigrant parents, highlight periods of illness likely associated with the weaning process, and bring to light the potential problems caused by maternal Vitamin D deficiency in the colony

Seeking their fortunes on the Otago goldfields, New Zealand – Constructing isotopic biographies of colonial goldminers

The nineteenth century New Zealand goldfields were a place where people from across the world came together in search of their fortunes. Written accounts of life on the diggings do exist but are of varying veracity and we therefore have little knowledge of the life experiences of those who came seeking gold. Recent excavations in cemeteries associated with the Otago goldrushes, however, are allowing direct reconstruction of lives using biological evidence from the skeletons themselves. In this study we use dietary isotope analysis (δ13C and δ15N) of tissues which form at different points in the life course of an individual to create ‘isotopic biographies’ of goldrush-era individuals. In addition to telling the individual stories of these people, we also highlight differences in life experience between members of the European and Chinese communities, evidence for seasonal availability of resources on the goldfields, as well as unusual weaning patterns which potentially link to rural poverty experienced during childhood