J. Lawrence Angel

Porotic Hyperostosis, Anemias, Malarias, and Marshes in the Prehistoric Eastern Mediterranean

Porotic hyperostosis, formerly called osteoporosis symmetrica, is an overgrowth of the spongy marrow space of the skull. In children, other bones may also be affected. The disease is a consequence of one of the thalassemias or sicklemia. These anemias are balanced polymorphisms which are apparently maintained by falciparum malaria. Falciparum malaria spread over the anopheline belts of the Old World in coincidence with porotic hyperostosis, but did not penetrate the New World. Here some other parasitism or deficiency anemia must have been the cause of porotic hyperostosis in ancient times. In Anatolia, Greece, and Cyprus from the seventh to second millennia B.C., porotic hyperostosis occurred frequently in early farmers who lived in marshy areas, but rarely in inhabitants of dry or rocky areas or in latest Paleolithic hunters. As shown by skeletal samples from Greece, the frequency of the disease decreased as farming methods improved. However, from Hellenistic to Romantic times it again increased together with increases in the incidence of malaria and in poorer farming. There are correlations between porotic hyperostosis and adult stature and fertility. The mutations producing falciparum malaria therefore must antedate seventh millenium B.C. and I think may have an Eastern Mediterranean origin.

Ecology and population in the Eastern Mediterranean

Abstract In the mountain, coastal, and river‐valley ecologic niches of the Eastern Mediterranean, united by sea trade and with productivity of grain and olives and animals set by winter rains and summer dryness, population density depends on health and food as determining, first, adult female longevity (i.e. time for fecundity) and, second, survival rates of infants and children. Rapid density increases in Neolithic, Middle‐Late Bronze Age, Classic (up over 35 per km.2) and Modern periods occur apparently with balance or decline of malaria and slight connection to change of sea level and climate. The major drop in population to 10 per km.2, in Roman to Moslem times, lags behind the causal man‐produced ecologic destruction (deforestation, erosion, soil‐exhaustion). Site‐counts and census allow density estimates and study of skeletons and pubic symphyses allow estimates of longevity, fecundity and survival.

Early Neolithic Skeletons from Çatal Hüyük: Demography and Pathology

The opportunity to study the early farming population at Catal Huyuk came to me through the foresight and kindness of the excavator, Mr. James Mellaart, and the successive Directors of the British Archaeological Institute Mr. Michael Gough and Dr. David French. I am most grateful to them for the opportunity to publish this report. In the autumn of 1967 I worked in collaboration with Dr. Denise Ferembach of the CNRS in Paris, who is reporting on the morphology and geographic relations of the population. We worked in the laboratory of Professor Enver Bostanci, head of the department of Palaeoanthropology at the University of Ankara, who most kindly aided us and allowed us facilities for study. The successive Directors General of Antiquities and Museums, Bay Mehmet Onder and Bay Hikmet Gurcay, also gave us permission to study this material and expressed gracious interest in it.

Biological relations of Egyptian and eastern Mediterranean populations during Pre-dynastic and Dynastic times

Abstract During the migrations and population increases and decline in health accompanying the Eighth-Sixth millennia B.C. farming revolution spread of the new mutant falciparum malaria from Greece and Italy crossed the flow of genes from Africa northward, as indicated by porotic hyperostosis increase (abnormal hemoglobins and anemia) and Negroid traits (nose breadth, prognathism). Disease selection shaped slightly Negroid and paedomorphic Dynastic Upper Egyptians. Lower Egyptians share Eastern Mediterranean traits and population growth and communication steadily lessens contrast between groups down to the XXX Dynasty.

Corinth, 1972: The Forum Area

In the southwest quarter of the forum a scattering of unstratified Neolithic pottery was found during the 1972 season. The earliest undisturbed material excavated, however, was of the Early Helladic period. Much E. H. II pottery was found throughout the area, even in the fill of a later well.2 One wall, considered to be Early Helladic by past excavators, appears rather to be Geometric, but to have been sunk into a deep, pure Early Helladic stratum.! Conversely, two graves previously identified as Geometric probably should be dated to the Early Helladic period.4