Christine Rothschild

Why Do We Fail in Aging the Skull From the Sagittal Suture

The controversy over the reliability of ectocranial suture status (open vs. closed) as an age estimation stimulated the pursuit of Meindl and Lovejoys suggestion (Meindl and Lovejoy [1985] Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 68:57-66) for large scale analysis. The extent of the sagittal suture closure was assessed in 3,636 skulls from the Hamann-Todd and Terry collections. The debate over whether cranial suture ossification represents a pathologic or an age-predictable pathologic process also stimulated a comparison with age and two stress markers, hyperostosis frontalis interna and tuberculosis. Sagittal suture closure was found to be age-independent and sexually biased. The wide confidence intervals (for age) appear to preclude meaningful application of suture status for age determination. No correlation was found with the tested biological stressors.

First European Exposure to Syphilis: The Dominican Republic at the Time of Columbian Contact

Recognition of syphilis in Europe in the late 15th century and its prior absence suggest New World origin. Skeletal populations were examined from sites with documented Columbian contact in the Dominican Republic. Examination of 536 skeletal remains revealed periosteal reaction characteristic of treponemal disease in 6%-14% of the afflicted population. Findings were identical to that previously noted in confirmed syphilis-affected populations and distinctive from those associated with yaws and bejel: it was a low population frequency phenomenon, affecting an average of 1.7-2.6 bone groups, often asymmetric and sparing hands and feet, but associated with significant tibial remodeling. While findings diagnostic of syphilis have been reported in the New World, actual demonstration of syphilis in areas where Columbus actually had contact was missing, until now. The evidence is consistent with this site as the point of initial contact of syphilis and of its subsequent spread from the New World to the Old.

Recognition of leukemia in skeletal remains: report and comparison of two cases.

Recognition of disease in the archeologic record is facilitated by characterization of the skeletal impact of documented (in life) disease. The present study describes the osteological manifestations of leukemia as identified in the skeletons of two individuals diagnosed during life: a 3-year-old black girl with acute lymphocytic leukemia and a 60-year-old white male with acute myelogenous leukemia in the Hamann-Todd collection. Contrasting with the lack of specificity of radiologic findings, macroscopic skeletal changes appear sufficiently specific to allow distinguishing leukemia from other forms of cancer. While leukemia appears confidently diagnosable, distinguishing among the varieties (e.g., myelogenous and lymphocytic) does not appear possible at this time. Skeletal findings in leukemia are presented in tabular form to facilitate their application to future diagnosis of the disease in the archaeological record.

Congenital Syphilis in the Archaeological Record: Diagnostic Insensitivity of Osseous Lesions

The paucity of convincing evidence for congenital bone lesions of syphilis in the archaeological record led to study of the human remains from the Buffalo site in West Virginia, dated at 550—650 years BP. The diagnosis of syphilis (venereal) in adults was based on previously validated population criteria for the recognition of syphilis and its distinction from among the other treponemal diseases. Among the 151 juveniles (23.3 per cent of the total series), only one had macroscopic evidence of periosteal disease. The low frequency of recognizable osseous stigmata characteristic of congenital syphilis, combined with the conspicuous absence of pathognomonic dental lesions, make such periosteal lesions insufficiently sensitive criteria for the identification of syphilis in the archaeological record.

INFLAMMATORY ARTHRITIS IN CANIDS: SPONDYLOARTHROPATHY

Abstract Spondyloarthropathy was observed in 25 (2.8%) of 895 preserved canid museum specimens and was catalogued by species. The associated skeletal alterations in canids are indistinguishable grossly and physiologically from those in humans with spondyloarthropathy of the reactive type. Rate of affliction was independent of captive or wild-caught status or gender. In canids, spondyloarthropathy was much more common than osteoarthritis (0.3%), which predominantly is limited to captive animals. Animal well-being may be enhanced by recognition of the condition and initiation of specific treatment.

On pseudoscience and treponemal disease in the Western Pacific.

Tehuacán and Oaxaca projects in detail because they had had such a powerful influence on the rest of MexiCorrection can early-period archaeology that it was impossible to work in that field without doing so. I gradually became aware that many of the interpretations and conclusions laura nader were based on minimal data and many preconceived Department of Anthropology, University of ideas. ‘‘The immediate objective . . . was the establishCalifornia, Berkeley, Calif. 94720-3710, U.S.A. ment of an uninterrupted archaeological column span21 vii 98 ning the time between the first human occupation of the valley and the Spanish Conquest. This hoped-for arIn 1996, my article ‘‘The Phantom Factor: Impact of the chaeological column would almost certainly be divisiCold War on Anthropology’’ appeared in a book pubble into cultural phases’’ (MacNeish 1967:14). Both lished by The New Press, The Cold War and the Unithese objectives had been achieved in only two field seaversity, with the following egregious error at the botsons. Even so, my primary intention was to try to build tom of p. 124. The original manuscript read, ‘‘At this on the published work by contributing some kind of inpoint, the Student Mobilization Committee (on the war formation on the use of the artefacts (Hardy 1993:20). in Vietnam) sent an ethics committee member, Eric In the event, I encountered so many problems with the Wolf, purloined documents from the files of Michael typology and technological interpretations in the part of Moerman. . . .’’ The sentence completely changed the Tehuacán assemblage that I saw that this proved to meaning when the editor inserted a ‘‘who’’ after Eric be impossible. I had been warned by many people that Wolf’s name. The editor’s insertion of a ‘‘who’’ after his if I became involved in critical analyses of work by Flanname made the adjective ‘‘purloined’’ into a verb, nery and MacNeish my work would be strongly atthereby incorrectly implying that it was Wolf who had tacked. I did not expect, though, that anyone would go purloined documents. Eric Wolf did not purloin any as far as they have done here. documents. Flannery repeatedly asks why I did not contact him or MacNeish. He fails to mention that I wrote him numerous letters requesting permission to look at his Oaxaca material, not one of which was replied to. Unable to wait any longer, and assuming that his repeated lack On the Tehuacán Project: Reply of response denoted a lack of interest, I eventually received written permission from Frank Hole to do what to Flannery and MacNeish I wished with the Oaxacan lithics. I also wrote to MacNeish and received a reply saying that he was delighted for me to look at the Tehuacán lithics. MacNeish also karen hardy telephoned me once from Mexico City suggesting that Carsewell Farmhouse, Silverburn, Midlothian we meet, and it is to my eternal disappointment that he EH26 9LA, Scotland, U.K. 18 vi 98 had given me no advance warning of his 24-hour stay there. I was elsewhere in Mexico and was unable to Flannery and MacNeish’s comments on my 1996 report meet him. After this time, I tried repeatedly to talk to (CA 38:660–72) contain a number of errors. Flannery is MacNeish about my work. He never answered my calls, right in pointing out that my report was a result of my and I finally gave up. I feel confident that I did my level Ph.D. thesis. Had Flannery and MacNeish checked my best to involve these people in my work, and I remain thesis (Hardy 1993), however, they would have found sorry that I so utterly failed. that this was only part of it. The second half of the theWhat I did manage to do in Mexico was to meet Ansis is made up of the results of an analysis of all the pretoinette Nelken-Terner and Angel Garcı́a Cook. Garcı́a ceramic lithic artefacts from Oaxaca. MacNeish would Cook’s insistence that I not be given access to the Tetherefore have been prevented from undermining his huacán material was finally overruled, at a meeting of conclusion by erroneously stating that ‘‘the comments the Consejo, by José Luis Lorenzo. A compromise had about Oaxaca are based upon neither examination of to be reached, and I accepted the collection in the Dethe artifacts nor adequate consideration of the pubpartment of Prehistory, knowingly forgoing the other lished material’’ (p. 671). I decided to reexamine the collections. I was not, as Flannery suggests (p. 662), influenced by Lorenzo. I paid him a courtesy visit in Mex1. Permission to reprint items in this section may be obtained only from their authors. ico City, and he offered his assistance if I needed it.

Identification of childhood arthritis in archaeological material: Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis versus juvenile spondyloarthropathy

The opportunity to examine the defleshed skeleton of an individual diagnosed in life (Hamann-Todd collection, individual 2036) afforded a unique opportunity to demonstrate the bone damage characteristic of at least one form of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA). Characteristics helpful for recognition of JRA in archaeological material include peripheral articular marginal and subchondral erosions, axial (e.g., zygapophyseal or sacroiliac) joint erosions, fusion of axial (cervical zygapophyseal) and/or peripheral joints, premature epiphyseal closure and/or ballooned epiphyses, growth retardation with underdeveloped (short and overtubulated) long bones, short mandibular rami with underdeveloped condyles and concomitant micrognathia, and demineralization (osteopenia). Distinguishing between JRA and juvenile spondyloarthropathy, however, is not always possible, as illustrated by this case.

Is there an epidemic/epizootic of spondyloarthropathy in baboons?

Evidence of chronic arthritis is present in baboon bones from non-African collections at a population frequency of only 3.8% (9 in 237), but these erosive changes (identified as a form of spondyloarthropathy) [6] were even more common in African collections. As most surveyed non-African, curated animals had been collected in the 1920s and 1930s, the possibility was considered that the apparent increase in frequency represented a real change over time. The Papio (baboon) collections of the National Museum of Kenya (NMK; Nairobi, Kenya), American Museum of Natural History (New York, NY), Carnegie Museum (Pittsburgh, PA), Cleveland Museum of Natural History (Cleveland, OH), Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago, IL), Florida State Museum (Gainesville, FL), Museum of Comparative Zoology (Harvard University, Cambridge, MA), National Museum of Natural History (Washington, D.C.), and University of Washington (Seattle, WA) were therefore analyzed according to year of skeletal acquisition. Skeletons of colony-raised P. anubis and free-ranging P. cynocephalus baboons were subjected to visual examination. Erosive disease was recognized on the basis of cortical bone discontinuity in the vicinity of joints. Such lesions (apparent erosions) were examined by 40x stereoscopic magnification to verify that they were antemortem pathological erosions, rather than postmortem artifacts (e.g., mechanical or chemical erosion). Spondyloarthropathy was recognized on the basis of the erosive arthritis, with reactive new bone formation, calcification in the anulus fibrosus, and zygapophyseal and sacroiliac erosions or fusion [4,5]. Erosive disease in Papio was confirmed as spondyloarthropathy. Sacroiliac erosions and syndesmophyte formation were diagnostic [&6]. Spondyloarthropathy in Papio was indistinguishable from that observed in human skeletons [5]. The frequency of spondyloarthropathy was indistinguishable in colony-raised and free-ranging NMK baboons [17 of 78 P. anubis (22%) and 16 of 80 P. cynocephalus (20%)]. Spondyloarthropathy was present in 11 of 32 P. anubis females, 5 of 49 P. anubis males, 8 of 26 P. cynocephalus females, and 8 of 46 P. cynocephalus males; female predominance of spondyloarthropathy in the two species was indistinguishable at 77% and 65%, respectively. However, both groups demonstrated a substantial increase (Table 1) from 3.8% in the 1920s and 1930s to 10% by the 1960s, and 30% in the past decade (chi square = 5.83, P < 0.025). The high frequency of spondyloarthropathy in the current baboon populations could be classified as an epizootic, if not considered epidemic. Spondyloarthropathy can be divided into four or five major varieties [4, 51. The variety most compatible with epidemic occurrence is Reiters syndrome or reactive arthritis [4, 51. The distribution of affected joints seen in this study (Table 2) is intermediate between the Reiter s syndrome and psoriatic arthritis varieties of spondyloarthropathy. Because transition from Reiter s syndrome to psoriatic arthritis (and vice-versa) has been reported [3] in both of these potentially infectious disorders [7, 81, distinguishing between them may not be pertinent in baboons. One consideration is a change in the gene pool. Reactive arthritis is more common in humans with the histocompatibility gene, HLA-B27 [4]. The frequency of spondyloarthropathy in baboons (since 1980) is indistinguishable from that of reactive arthritis (among HLA-B27-positive individuals, subsequent to infectious-agent diarrhea [2]). Infectious-agent diarrhea is ubiquitous among baboons [ l ] , so increased distribution of an HLA-B27 analogous gene pool in baboons could also explain the current ar: thritis epidemic/epizootic. However, equal occurrence of spondyloarthropathy in colony-raised and free-ranging animals makes that possibility less likely. An environmental factor would seem more likely. Although Reiter s syndrome and psoriatic arthritis most commonly affect otherwise healthy humans, they appear to be more proportionately common in individuals with human immunodeficiency virus

OCCURRENCE AND TRANSITIONS AMONG THE TREPONEMATOSES IN NORTH AMERICA

There has clearly been a differential (geographic/time) transition of treponemal disease in the southwest. The patterns of disease reproducibly fulfill criteria for yaws (present initially), with subsequent recognition of syphilis. Syphilis appears to be a North American disease, which developed as a mutation from yaws approximately 2000 ybp on the Colorado Plateau. The time course of subsequent replacement of yaws by syphilis varies above and below the Mogollon Rim and appears compatible with timing of increasing social interactions between the groups.

Skeletal manifestations of leprosy: analysis of 137 patients from different clinical settings in the pre- and post-modern treatment eras.

This study was conducted to further characterize the nature of leprosy-related bone alterations, to develop a hypothesis of their pathophysiology, and to define the impact of treatment on bone damage. Radiographs of 60 patients under care at the Carville, Louisiana leprosy hospital were compared with 50 from the early (before availability of effective treatment) part of this century and with 27 from the Toronto (Ontario, Canada) leprosy clinic.Two-thirds of lesions were so severe that distal digital tufts had been lost to whittling, resorption, or fragmentation. Fifty percent were felt to be pathognomonic for the changes of leprosy.Resorption, fragmentation, and malaligned fractures are highly suggestive of leprosy, while diaphyseal whittling appears specific when medullary sclerosis or wavy diaphyseal borders are present. Medicinal intervention appeared to be of limited benefit for bone damage; perhaps greater attention to joint/bone protection (as recommended in diabetes management) will prove helpful. Environmental adjustment to minimize injury risk and daily limb examination for injury are recommended.