ANTH 213 Notes PDF

Class 01: Introduction January 4th 2024 Prof: Lucile Bousquié - Email : [email protected] OR [email protected] - Constantly changing syllabus so must watch!! Breakdown of course: - Midterm on FEB 29TH @ 40% - Both midterm and final are questions from prof’s past exams at UdeM (d...

Class 01: Introduction January 4th 2024 Prof: Lucile Bousquié - Email : [email protected] OR [email protected] - Constantly changing syllabus so must watch!! Breakdown of course: - Midterm on FEB 29TH @ 40% - Both midterm and final are questions from prof’s past exams at UdeM (department of Bioarchaeology). - *Coursehero + other - https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/32929439/archaeology-midte rm-2-sample-test-questions - Both midterm and final are MCQs and some fill-in-the-blanks. They are BOTH non-cumulative. - Final TBD @ 40% - Assignment @ 20% - Take home assignment consists of analysing photos of sepultures. - NO textbook is required; PowerPoints will be posted in class. Course schedule: MODULE 1: What do we do with bone remains? Bioarchaeological approach Biological profile Taphonomy Readings: Sutton (2021); Ubelaker (1997); Ubelaker et al. (2003) MODULE 2: Introduction to paleopathology Definition and discipline history Interdisciplinarity and methods Field studies and paleopathology without bone Readings: TBA MODULE 3: Paleopathology in practise Fundamental concepts in paleopathology Bones growth, histology and stress Type of disease: ageing, deterioration and trauma Type of disease: deficiency, metabolic and oral Type of disease: growth anomaly and tumors Type of disease: infectious and pandemic history Readings: TBA _____ = exam Q MODULE 4: Paleopathology at the populational level Paleoepidemiological basics Paleodemographical basics DNA and isotopic studies Burial analysis and base in archaeothanatology Burial analysis and case studies Readings: TBA MODULE 5: Health and disease related to environment Biocultural adaptation: cold and altitude Biocultural adaptation: sedentary lifestyle and breeding Effect of diet: economical genome and obesity Effect of diet: agriculture, deficiency and oral disease Effect of diet: health condition and amelioration Readings: TBA Class 02: Module 1, Part A January 9th 2024 Random: today’s population is returning (in terms of health) to the prehistoric condition, with modern medicine and health practices, which is a difference from Mediaeval health conditions. IN-CLASS - What do we do with bone remains? - Many things to do when you find bones in the ground; is it a forensic case or archeological remains? - Have to associate gender, class, culture. - Bioarchaeology: Branch of anthropology that deals with the study of human remains, discovered in archaeological contexts with sampling methods where every bone is important. - Participate in excavation field studies; learn how to clean bones and deal with the entire archaeological process. - Email prof for contacts in other countries for field studies! - Once upon a time, the entire skeleton was not as important, but a shift in research in recent years implemented greater importance to the entire body. - Reading 1, Sutton (2021) - Is the definition the same for all intellectual current? - No, the definition is not all the same. - Definitions of anthropology, ethnography, ethnology, bioarcheology, archeology and forensics. Note ambiguity in US and UK definition. In the UK it refers to the biological constituents from a site, such as faunal or botanical remains…linked to osteoarchaeology. In the US, it is called archaeobiology. - Not all scholars share the same definition, the term bioarcheology is diverse and does not have a narrow definition. - Makes it difficult to deal with international scholars. - Shift in type of research; want to learn about the person and not just about their profile (age, race, gender). Interested more now in understanding the anthropological context. It is however still MORE descriptive than humanistic (like pure anthropology). - What are human remains? - Anything that is a part of a living human, or deceased person, in part or whole. - Ex. decidual teeth; you lose them, but it's still part of your body (at one point). If you were amputated, are these body parts? They are not currently with you… For this reason, human remains are a little complicated to define. - “The determination of what constitutes human remains is generally made based on the nature and context of the remains, their age, and whether they were associated with a group whose belief systems might consider any human material “human remains.” - For this class, we will look at ALL the body parts (and forget the complicated things associated with it). - “Initially, the definition of human remains seems obvious: a deceased person, in whole or part. Following this, most legal definitions in the United States generally specify a “dead body.” - Bioarcheology historically - First period of anthropology: 17th century - Started as a means to associate race to people and therefore intelligence. - Classification of living organisms: Human beings are the most “perfect form”. - They started classifying humans and started seeing that there are many different morphologies; therefore also tried to classify variation in human species…which didn’t bring good things to the world. Came with a very racist POV. - Carl Linné (1707-1778) - Mixed the physical and emotional traits in his studies and is known to have made absurd correlations. - Known as determinism, but a racist form of it (all actions of the human are caused by factors external to will). - First to classify the living, including humans. - Classified 6 races: american, asiatic, european, black, savage and horrific. - Classed by geographical origin. - Example of racist determinism: intelligence as a function of prognathism (depth of forehead). - - - Johann Blumenbach (1752-1840): Father of bioarcheology - Decided to classify using different terms: caucasian, mongolian, american, ethiopian and malayan. - Some of these terms are used today… not accurate and don’t have a clean past. - Classified human variation using head measurement (craniometry), skin colour and type of hair. Samuel G. Morton (1799-1850): Measured carnival capacity (volume) - Big cranial capacity, therefore more intelligent. - Ignored the natural variation of skulls and the reproducibility of his work. - If research is more eleaned to your bias, then they are not reproducible and therefore are not scientific fact. - Took skulls that fit his theory; not random sampling, not objective. - Used to claim that men are smarter than women. F. Tiedemann (1781-1861) - - Analysed the same skulls. - Not enough differences, as mentioned by Morton. - Doesn’t mean he wasn’t racist, just proved that the science behind Morton’s theory was wrong. - Concluded that there is no significant difference between populations. Paul Broca (1824-1880): Father of anthropology in France. - Measured the cranial capacity and created the “cephalic index”. - Evaluation of an individual's quality. - Ex. Bigger brain has more empathy and sympathy. - Found two types of brains - Brachycephalic (short). - Dolichocephalic (long, more perfect skull). - But, some Europeans are brachycephalic and some prehistoric humans are dolichocephalic skulls… contradiction. - Franz-Joseph Gall (1758-1828): Father of phrenology. - Phrenology: reading temper with cranial bumps - These kinds of studies are wrong but it helped the neuroscientific analysis because there are scientific ways to explain how some areas of the brain are evolved to experience certain feelings or certain actions. - Ex. Some areas of the brain are in tune with speaking and the action of forming and understanding words. - This led to scientific racism seen in the first representation of human evolution. - Making of family trees (as in the same period as Darwin’s theories) that are rooted in racism. - - - - - - Franz Boas (1858-1942) - Concluded that cranial morphology is mainly influenced by the environment. - Depending on where you are coated, your skeleton will be different. - In wealthy families, you are fed well and will have all the nutrients, and so you will be taller than someone who is born and raised in poverty who does not get many nutrients that support bone growth. - Challenged scientific racism. - Was the founding father of boasian anthropology (4 subdisciplines) which consists of 4 sub-disciplines. - Archaeology, Linguistics, Physical Anthropology and Cultural anthropology. Second period: 1950s - Focused on global skeletal measurements (bio-cultural approach). - Including notions of funerary archeology, social studies, ethnology. - Bone → skeleton → individual → society. What are the main scopes of archeology today? Three major research foci of bioarcheology (Larsen 2006): - 1. Quality of life (diet, nutrition, disease, growth and development). - 2. Behaviour and lifestyle (biomechanics). - 3. Population history (biological relationships and population movements). Four principal aspects of bioarchaeology (Martin et al. 2012): - 1. Consideration of the body, mortuary and funerary behaviours. - 2. Taphonomy. - 3. Connection between past and living groups. - 4. Interdisciplinary nature of the field. - You need to know things about medicine, anatomy, biology, etc. Third period: 1990s - Consideration for the ethical aspect toward human remains and colonialism. - National laws, UN decrees and professional order ethic codes. - Inclusion of descending populations and beliefs, repatriation of remains and artefacts, respectful treatment of past individual remains and the importance of the scientific approach. - Ex. Inclusion of Native Americans in the field; their wants for their dead. - They have the right to stop the scientific process because of cultural or spiritual laws of their sector. - In reading, multiple examples of how we can include nations in the field to respect the values of their people we are studying. - Dealing with the living population; have to take colonialism into account. What to do when bones are found? - - Call the police or other town services and then, they contact the bioarcheologists/anthropologists. You have 24hrs to do so. - Preliminary questions and biological profile analysis. - The analysis is the same for all anthropologists; for forensics and for bioarcheologists. Questions to ask at site? - Are the remains human? - Comparative anatomy - Ex. if you remove bear claws, phalanges… the hand resembles the human skeleton. - Need to know principal characteristics of other mammal skeletons. - Ex. if you just have femur, how will you know if it is human… comparative anatomy. - Knowledge of human variation. - - How many individuals? - Use: Minimal Number of Individuals (MNI) - Common to have graves with multiple individuals. - Classify body parts and then count the number of skulls, femurs, etc. - Ex. If you have 4 skulls, 3 left femurs, 6 right femurs and 3 phalanges… how many individuals are in the grave? - 6 people (at a minimum…could be more but given what counted, this is the lowest possible). - Take the largest number: if you find 6 different right femurs, there have to be 6 different people. Is it modern or archeological? - Analyse the context - Look for artefacts! If you find a wallet: modern. If you find a sword: archaeological. - When analysing, need to make sure you use methods that are tailored to the goal you are trying to attain: - Ex. cost or date of death vs. date of burial. - Dating (absolute or relative) - - Absolute: will get you exact time. - Paleomagnetism: the study of ancient magnetism preserved in rocks or clay. - In general, when clay/rock is heated, the microscopic iron particles within it acquire a remnant magnetism parallel to the earth's magnetic field. They also point toward the location around the geographic north pole where the magnetic north pole was at that moment in its wandering. Once the clay cools, the iron particles maintain that magnetism until the clay is reheated. - Amino acid racemisation: dates proteins and hormones. - Radiometric: - Carbon is for recent organic tissue. - Potassium-Argon/Uranium-Thorium is for older bone tissue. - Thermoluminescence (heated element): last time element was exposed to heat. - Optically stimulated luminescence (sun exposure): last time element was sun exposed. - Fission track: changes in uranium due to minerals. - Nuclear fission of uranium within minerals creates damage trails, called fission tracks (FT) that can be etched and observed with a microscope. - Radiometric analysis can ruin samples!! Relative: will give you approximation NOT precise date. - Stratigraphy: if you find your skeleton in the ground layer, which is deeper than the layer where you found an old sword, then you can say that the sword is newer than the skeleton (skeleton older). - Biostratigraphy: when you use other animals from other layers of earth where you found your skeleton. - Tephrochronology: same thing but with ashes. If you are in a volcanic place, you can analyse different eruptive layers. - Dendrochronology: tree dating using rings from tree trunks. If it was a hot summer, and the tree struggled to grow, the ring would be smaller. - - Also useful if you find a skeleton with a wooden coffin, analyse the coffin. Using a database where data on tree rings was collected from different regions, you can match wood from the coffin with a specific area/time of trees. - Fluorine accumulation: can see how much fluorine is in the bone since they have died. - In principle, an older burial will contain more fluorine from groundwater than a more recently buried bone; however, this principle must be tested at each site as fluorine absorption is affected by many environmental factors. - Seriation (impacted bone from specific arrow that was known to be made during late roman era, can date this way). Who is this person? Animal? - Perform biological profile - Sex, age at death, ancestry (population affinity), stature and unique markers and pathologies. - Sex (not gender) - Best option is to take the pelvis. This is for the BIOLOGICAL sex. - It is the thing that is the most different between male and female; Hips are larger for females to support pregnancy and to promote the expansion of the birth canal. - The female's pelvis is described as a “butterfly”. - Second best option is the skull, but they are less obvious then pelvic bone. - Males will have a bump between the eyes called the glabella, a larger mastoid process and larger chin compared to female chin. Zygomatic bone under eyes will also be larger for the male because there are larger muscles that are needed to be attached. READING 1: Sutton (page 1) - Which of these and other approaches were practised depended on the beliefs of the society of the deceased and sometimes those of their enemies. - Anthropology is the study of humans, and anthropologists want to learn all they can about people and societies, including their social, political, religious systems, and much more. - Ethnography is the study of a living society - Ethnology is the comparative study of culture and society. - Archaeology is the study of past societies. - Must infer such behaviours from the context and patterns of material remains - The initial step in bioarchaeology is to describe the remains themselves (typically bone) and identify any disease or trauma. - Next, the cultural context of the remains must be considered, so the archaeological data regarding the remains and associated artefacts or facilities are crucial. (page 2) - Forensics analysis of human remains is focused on medico-legal issues, that is, efforts to solve crimes or to identify the missing. - For example, the Nevada Revised Statute, Section 451.005, specifies human remains as “the body of a deceased person... the body in any state of decomposition and the cremated remains of a body,” the general implication being a complete body of some sort. - What about fragmentary remains? What about remains such as blood, proteins, or DNA? What about paleofeces? - The determination of what constitutes human remains is generally made based on the nature and context of the remains, their age, and whether they were associated with a group whose belief systems might consider any human material “human remains.” (page 3) - The discipline initially arose out of early interest in classifying and quantifying morphological variation in modern human populations into racial groups. - Much of this early work had strong elements of racism, sexism, and biological determinism. - Much of the early osteological work was centred on the measurements of crania. - Gave rise to the subfield of craniometry, which was frequently used in phrenology, a technique to determine character, personality traits, and criminality on the basis of the shape of the head (skull) in living people. - Leading thinkers of craniometry - Blumenbach (1776) used measurements (although no accurate measuring devices had been invented yet) on a collection of crania to describe his earliest views on racial classification and human variation. - Developed a classifica- tion of five “races” of humans: (1) Caucasian or white; (2) Mongolian or yellow, includ- ing all East Asians and some Central Asians; (3) Malayan or brown, including Southeast Asian and Pacific Islanders; (4) Ethiopian or black, including sub-Saharan Africans; and (5) American or red, including American Indians. - Blumenbach believed in a “degenerative” model of race; that is, that Adam and Eve were Caucasian and all other races came about by degeneration from the original Caucasian - Different races resulted from living in different environments - Samuel George Morton - Demonstrated that they were all the same “race”. - Argued that cranial capacity was the determining factor in intelligence and the capacity for culture. (page 4) - Upon Morton’s death in 1851, the Charleston Medical Journal noted that “we of the South should consider him as our benefactor, for aiding most materially in giving to the negro his true position as an inferior race.” - Gould (BIOL215 ref.) disproving Morton’s theory. - Gould (1981) argued that (1) Morton selected and/or deleted skulls from his sample depending on whether they fit his theory; (2) seeds were used to measure cranial capacity, an unreliable and unreproducible method; (3) the normal variation in populations was not considered; and (4) rounding the numbers was done to support his theory. - Pierre Paul Broca - Asserted that men had larger brains than women (implying men were more intelligent) and that “superior races” had larger brains than “inferior races.” - Broca made other contributions to the field of neurology. - Aleš Hrdlička - Proponent of standardising anthropometric measurements with particular emphasis on measurements of the crania to determine biological affinity. - Earnest A. Hooton - Argued that individuals could be racially typed and the racial history of the population understood through analysis of the individuals. - Scientific racism as a motive and present implications scientific racism - approach has been completely discredited, as it is very clear that (1) all living (and recently living) people belong to the same species; (2) that variation was due to evolutionary adaptation to different environments; (3) that this adaptation resulted in different populations; (4) that such populations share physical characteristics; (5) that adaptation and variation are ongoing processes; (6) that mental capacities are not related; and (7) that culture accounts for social differences. (page 5) - “Ethnic group” be substituted for the term “race” - Classificatory approach was being replaced by a more holistic approach to skeletal morphological measurements. - Paleopathology, the analysis of disease that can be detected in tissues, primarily bone. - Interest in paleopathology increased with studies of the origins of diseases, such as syphilis. - Mortuary analysis, the study of burial patterns; Was discouraged later on as mortuary behaviour was a matter of style and so not socially informative, and this view continued to be held by many archaeologists. (page 6) - Biocultural approach; an interdisciplinary methodology that integrated the study of human remains with archaeology and anthropology and included mortuary practices (the funerary system), social organisation, daily activities and division of labour, paleodemography, population movements and relatedness, and diet and health. - Somatology: a branch of anthropology primarily concerned with the comparative study of human evolution, variation, and classification especially through measurement and observation. - For the first aspect, the management of the body immediately following death is generally defined as mortu- ary treatment, while mourning and commemorative practices are often called funerary behaviour. - The second aspect, taphonomy, is fundamentally about preservation and is central to the ability of obtaining data on both mortuary and funerary behaviour. Without preservation at some level, the archaeologist would not recover anything and there would be nothing to study. - For the third aspect, the connection between past and present groups to help under- stand past practices is made using ethnographic analogy and experimental archaeology - Finally, bioarchaeology is today a highly interdisciplinary empirical specialty integrated with social theory - Analyses include osteology (the study of bones), paleodemography (the study of past populations), biodistance (relatedness) studies, biogeochemistry (the study of the chemistry of bones), and taphonomy permit the study of social identities, such as gender, age, dis- ability, impairment, and life course, as well as ethnic and community identities. (page 7) - Ethical implications of bioarcheology and studying people and graves. - Disturbance of burials in modern graves or those in recognized and maintained cemeteries is illegal in almost every country. - Not been the case for the remains of subjugated peoples (Fourth World) or the remains from unknown prehistoric societies (Fifth World). - "Fourth" and "fifth" worlds have been used informally to refer to indigenous or marginalised communities that exist outside the traditional nation-state framework. - Change is in large part due to the efforts of indigenous peoples throughout the world who have gained more political power and have denounced the disturbance of their ancestors and the burial objects from their graves. - Indigenous groups be consulted prior to conducting archaeological excavations treatment - Negotiated prior to the commencement of fieldwork - Conflict between archaeologists and descendant communities could be avoided or mitigated through increased communication with the viewpoint that (1) the remains be treated with dignity, (2) descendant communities should have control over their disposition, and (3) the remains should be preserved when possible due to their scientific value. - Issue with museum displays because disturbing the dead could break a social contract made with the living (or then-living) regarding the disposition of their bodies after death. - Perspective on repatriation (practices that are now seen as part of colonial repression to return). (page 8) - Sometimes considered too important to science to just rebury without study - Contemporary archaeology is a western enterprise, and western archaeologists tend to view things with western logic and value systems and impose their own cultural experiences on the remains they study, a clear problem for interpretation. - It is important to understand that descendant communities are made up of contemporary people with contemporary identities, not past people living in societies unchanged through time. - The Vermillion Accord on the treatment of human remains called for “mutual respect for the beliefs of indigenous peoples as well as the importance of science and education”. (page 9) - Ex. Israeli law does not consider human remains of any age to be antiquities, so when human remains are found they are turned over to the Ministry of Religious Affairs for reburial. - Opposes disturbance of the dead, except when they “disturb public activities” (ex. construction). - Ex. War graves that are also protected by the law. - War graves contain people who died in active military service (although not necessarily in combat) but who are not interred in cemeteries. - Teams from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) are tasked with their recovery, identification, and repatriation. The French, British, Australians, and Germans make similar efforts. (page 10) - Rule 1: Obtain permission to excavate land - First, a permit must be obtained to conduct work if the land is owned by the government. If the land is privately owned, permission to work must be obtained from the owner. - Rule 2: If human remains or sacred objects are accidentally unearthed, such as during construction, the appropriate Native American groups will be consulted - NAGPRA: The federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990 reflects the concerns of indigenous peoples about the treatment of the dead by archaeologists, biological anthropologists, and museums. - Case study: Kennewic - Adult male, between 45 and 55 years of age. - European rather than Native American morphology. - Hard, dark object embedded in a partially healed wound in the ilium of the pelvis; elvis was given a CT scan, and the object was found to be a Cascade projectile (5-9K y.a). (page 11) - Upon learning that the skeleton was Native American, the Army Corps reported the discovery to the local Native Americans, the Yakama, Umatilla, and Colville tribes, as required under NAGPRA. (page 12) - Concerned that information about the origins and life of this individual would be lost to science, sued the federal government for permission to conduct a complete analysis of the remains before they were reburied. - Tribes had not clearly shown a direct affiliation with the remains (NAGPRA requires a “preponderance of evidence”). - In 2005, a bill to amend NAGPRA to make it easier for tribes to claim unaffiliated remains was introduced in Congress but was not passed. - However, in 2010, that same change was made to the federal regulations under NAGPRA. - The analyses indicated that Kennewick Man was an approximately 40-year-old male and was intentionally buried. He had lived a hard life; he had a number of healed fractures and some osteoarthritis, suggesting considerable mobility. (page 13) - Skeletal morphology suggested he was related to the Jamōn of prehistoric Japan. - Isotopic studies indicated a diet primarily of salmon or marine mammals with little input from terrestrial foods, illustrating the likelihood that he had lived in a coastal context for much of his life. - The presence of auditory exostoses (bone growth in the ear canal) was indicative of a life spent in and around cold water, and his worn teeth signified the consumption of foods with a high abrasive con- tent, such as dried fish. - Finally, analysis of his DNA showed that he was related to the same Native groups. - In February 2017, the skeleton was turned over to the tribes and reburied. - Failure to comply with these laws constitutes a felony. - Laws in archeology regarding non-Native peoples and a related case study non–Native American remains must also be considered. (page 14) - The construction of another federal courthouse in New York City resulted in the dis- covery of a large cemetery containing the remains of many African slaves. - Most of the interments were enslaved Africans, but other groups were also represented, including the poor and indigent, as well as prisoners held during the American Revolution. (page 15) - Mostly children under age 12, and some of the adults showed the effects of being over- worked, which may have led to their deaths. - Buried in traditional African ways Class 03: Module 1, Part B January 11th 2024 IN CLASS - Age (biological and not social) - As an infant, the skull isn’t fused. - As of the age of 21, you start to age (or the bones start to age). - 1. Immature (not reached puberty yet) - Pattern of dental eruption. - Depending on the age, the type of impacted teeth vary. For example, wisdom teeth, baby teeth. - After 15 y.o. The eruption pattern is difficult to follow as there are some inconsistencies; at the age of 15 you may or may not still have baby teeth or may start to have wisdom teeth. - So valid until 15 y.o. - - - Epiphyseal fusion stage - Depending on age., fusion of bones will be different. - Ex. A baby will have more bones than an adult, but that is because they haven’t fused yet. - Ex. Femur until 20 is not completely fused; still has cracks. - Last bone fusion in the body is at 25 y.o., a bone in the head. It’s between 2 bones in the back of the head, NOT the cranial fusion. Length and diameter of long bones - Population dependent (ex. South sahara peoples are really tall, compared to people from Peru). - Depending on age, it should be in the range of length for long bones. 2. Adults - Cementochronology - When teeth are fully developed, they will have deposits at the root of teeth, which is the cementum. - They are formed with layers, so for age, we can date the layers. - Need to image skeleton though, so not really used. - Dental attrition - Not so good because depending on what you eat and where you live, will have different attrition. - - - - - - Because teeth don’t heal, you will see more denting in the enamel the more you use it. Less enamel if you use more. - If you live in a sandy environment, all the things you consume will have sand and will cause more denting. - If you cook your meat vs. eat it raw. Cranial suture fusion stage - With age, there is no more trace of sutures. - This is also population dependent, and where you find the cemetery, etc. - Ex. Depending on geo origins, you will heal age quicker or slower. Pubic symphysis stage - The pubic symphysis is a joint sandwiched between your left pelvic bone and your right pelvic bone. It helps your pelvis absorb some of the weight from your upper body before it travels to your lower body. It also helps separate your pelvic bones to prepare for vaginal childbirth. - The older you get, the more porous the pubic symphysis will be. - Also depends on the individual. Sternal extremity of rib - Part of the rib that is connected to the sternum. - They change and become more porous throughout life. Auricular surface changes - Coccyx and sacrum merging; changes during lifetime. - Based on sex as well. Bone microstructure - - - Young bones are “clean”; smooth. Older bones have osteons because of remodelling. Bones are constantly removing and changing. - So the more osteons and the more superposition of osteons depict age. Ancestry (population affinity) - Less used in the last 20 or so years and very controversial. - European individual. - Sloped orbits. - African or “typical” afro-descendent. - Rectangular orbits. - Native American “typical” native individual. - Round orbits. Stature - Using bone lengths different - - Measurements are put in the equation BUT there is a pop-dependent wide error interval. Unique markers (whole skeleton) - NOT PATHOLOGICAL; just a variation of the human skeleton. - Cranial deformation. - Wormian bones. - When bones are fused in the skull, there may be an “accident” and they create a new bone. - Foramen singularity. - Cavity vs. whole hole. - SOMETIMES, there ARE pathological reasons for holes, and so you need to figure out if it's a unique marker or a pathology. - - - Dental singularity. Many times, if two individuals are found in the same cemetery (grave or near), then you can assume that they are likely related. Pathologies - To know the health and diseases of past populations. - But we will learn more about this throughout the course. Identification - Odontology - Matching dental records of remnants with those of dentists. - Use radiography. - Face reconstruction - Using clay on the skull and markers that are then computerised to make a possible face of a person. - Takes into account muscle placement of an average adult. - DNA comparison (mitochondrial and nuclear) - - - - - Mitochondrial from maternal lineage. Need reference from maternal line. Nuclear is a combination of both maternal and paternal DNA. Case study from Ubelaker 2003 Anthropological analysis: - Sex : using pelvis pubic morphology - Age at death : using epiphyseal fusion stage - Ancestry : using remains of skin Radiology - Identification of some healed trauma and diseases - Comparison with missing people register mtDNA: - Comparison with mother sample blood - Comparison between labs Taphonomy: the study of the process by which remains pass from the biosphere to the lithosphere. - All things that happen after the death of an individual. - Death → Burial →Excavation → Transport → Storage = Taphonomic Process - Taphonomic process: alteration and modification of bones. - Highly important because of the “paleopathomimic” - Destruction of information about possible pathology and the - Addition of false proof of pathology. - It is part of the taphonomic process. - Ex. if you find a hole in the skeleton, could be trepanation (meningeal procedure) or a bullet. Resembles. Or when gardening and don’t know of a skeleton in the ground and hit a shovel, can damage bones. Alteration can resemble those antemortem. - Taphonomic factors: - Biological: - Bone deposition (could be pathology or taphonomic) - Root stains (not always evident). - Bacterial erosions. - Physical: - Fire (many populations burn their dead). - Get a colour change. With a certain temperature, it becomes HIGHLY white (800C). - They also get deformed a bit. - Trampling - Being stepped on or kicked. - - - - Need to be compared with a microscope to see what is a trampling mark vs an alternate pattern on bone. Weathering - Need to also be wary of the fact that this can also be obtained pathologically. - Described in Ubelaker 1997 reading as: “weathering represents the response to bone to its immediate environment, e.g., soil, sun, etc. as opposed to carnivore modifications, trampling, fluvial transport, and geochemical changes (Behrensmeyer 1978; Miller 1975). From her research with bones of recent mammals in the Amboseli Basin in southern Kenya, Behrensmeyer recognized six progressive stages of bone weathering:” - Cracking, flaking, fibrous texture, rough texture, falling apart. Chemical - Chemical erosion: bone reacts to acidity of soil, or an added (artificial) degradative substance. Animal: - Gnawing: If you know the correct morphology of bone, you can see that they are not normal variations of bone. - Carnivore chewing and digestion - Disarticulation: funerary companion? Or Scavenging? - Described in Uberlaker 1997 as: five stages of sequential alteration due to canid scavenging. These are - (1) no bony involvement - (2) ventral thorax damage with one or both extremities removed - (3) lower extremity involvement - (4) only vertebral segments remaining articulated and - (5) total disarticulation. - Obviously, previous trauma to the remains or other unusual factors may influence the sequence of change. - But Q, if a small carnivore is found, is this a possible funerary companion? Or scavenging? READING 2: Ubelaker 1997 (page 1) - Taphonomy was generally defined by Efremov in 1940; it is the study of the processes by which organic remains pass from the biosphere into the lithosphere as the result of geological and biological processes. - Sometimes necessitates the reconstruction of perimortem and postmortem processes and the discrimination of nature from human induced trauma. - Perimortem: At or near time of death. - Factors in the transport and dispersal of skeletal elements include animals, gravity, or water and fluvial processes - Animal-related processes include trampling, entrance fall, gnawing, and digestion. - Physical factors include rockfall, water transport, sandblasting, weathering, burial, diagenic movement, volcanic shockwave, acid attack by roots, cryoturbation, release and breakup by bottom- fast ice, and mineralization by ground water (page 2) - Environmental assessment can play an important role in interpretation. The burial con- text, the presence of potentially abrading sand and gravel, and the pattern of the marks on the bones all provide clues. - Research also has documented that the pattern of chewing varies for different bones, and that animal chewing can produce spiral fractures. - They interpret (misinterpret them, sometimes) as being human in origin. (page 3) - Stage 0: no sign of cracking or flaking due to weathering bone is still greasy cavities contain tissue; skin and muscle/ligament. - Stage 1: cracking, normally parallel to the fibre structure. Fat, skin, and other tissue may or may not be present. - Stage 2: Flaking, usually associated with cracks, angular in cross section. Ligaments, cartilage, and skin may be present. - Stage 3: Patches of rough, homogeneously weathered compact bone. - Stage 4: Coarsely fibrous and rough in texture, splinters. Penetrates into inner cavities. - Stage 5: Falling apart in situ, with large splinters lying around - Particular areas of application are: - (1) estimation of postmortem interval (time since death); - (2) environmental reconstruction or the detection of unknown postmortem scenarios; - (3) reconstruction of postmortem events; and - (4) distinguishing evidence of foul play from alterations caused by other taphonomic factors. (page 4) - With humans, postmortem interpretation includes not only the possible effects of weathering, trampling, etc., but also embalming, cremation, or other types of burning. - Research and experience have documented how variable the rate of decomposition can be. - Influencing factors can be the ambient temperature, amount of rainfall, clothing, burial type, burial depth, extent of animal chewing and disarticulation, extent of perimortem trauma, body weight, and general environmental conditions. - With human remains, Haglund et al. (1989) document five stages of sequential alteration due to canid scavenging. - These are (1) no bony involvement, (2) ventral thorax damage with one or both upper extremities removed, (3) lower extremity involvement, (4) only vertebral segments remaining articulated, and (5) total disarticulation. (page 5) - Barnacles adhering to bones indicate exposure to salt water. Green algae stain frequently is present on remains from moist shaded areas. Soil embedded in orifices indicates previous burial. Bleaching of bone surfaces usually indicates prolonged sun exposure, although salt water can produce similar results. Adipocere usually indicates a wet environment. - Physical characteristics associated with the embalming process, artefacts associated with the coffin, devices used in embalming, and levels of chemicals in the soft tissue all provide clues to the remains’ history. - A case in which a skeleton was discovered in a farmer’s field with a shotgun in association. - Skeletal analysis revealed cranial fragmentation as well as numerous small round perforations in the pelvic area. - Overall pattern of fracture was consistent with gunshot wounds. There was variability in coloration of anatomically adjacent fragments suggesting that breakage occurred early in the postmortem interval. (page 6) - Small particles embedded within fractured cranial surfaces revealed them to be plastics containing cellulose nitrate, a known residue of gunpowder. - Factors indicated that the pellet injury was sustained postmortem perforations were located on the head of the femur with no injury to the corresponding area of the pelvis. - Cracks were present on the bones of the pelvis, indicating exposure of 2 to 3 years. - Cracks can resemble those produced by blunt force trauma - Fungus can cause a blackening of bones that simulates burning. Carnivore tooth marks can appear very similar to sharp force trauma. - Another case: remains were identified by dental com- parison as those of a young woman. - Suspected that after she had been killed, her attackers had attempted to burn the body before depositing it within the cistern. - Analysis revealed, however, that the blackened area was produced by fungus growing within the damp dark cistern and was a postmortem phenomenon not related to foul play. - Much of the outer structures of the face had been destroyed, apparently by an acid-like material…too severe, had to represent foul play. - Cranium had rolled off the skeleton and was resting on its side. Therefore, they concluded that it originated perimortem, before decomposition when the bones were still articulated. (page 7) - Another case: Dr. Weiss had been a 29-year-old ear, nose, and throat specialist in Baton Rouge when he was killed on September 8, 1935. (page 8) - Weiss’ remains indicated that he had been shot at least 20 times, with about half of them coming from behind. - Small fractures within the metacarpals of the right hand. Additional analysis revealed similar small fractures on the diaphyses of the metacarpals of the left hand and on some of the metatarsals as well. - Resulted from postmortem taphonomic factors. - The Weiss skeleton was a peculiar metallic blackening of the teeth. The black stain was located on the lingual aspects of most of the teeth but on the buccal surfaces of only the mandibular teeth. - This revealed a mercury composition originated from Weiss’ amalgam fillings and his overbite created the space through which some mercury managed to travel to eventually settle on the labial surfaces of the anterior teeth. - Small white crystalline deposits located throughout the postcranial skeleton, sulfuric origin. - The small deposits were removed, leaving behind a small crater-like perforation in the bone cortex that perhaps to some would imitate a disease condition. (page 9) - Another case: body found and was a young woman from Puerto Rico. - Suffered injuries and also her finger may have been amputated. - Exhumation of the remains and to try to locate the altered phalanx. - Stained dark grey, apparently by moisture and decomposing materials within the carton in which they were buried. - Microscopic examination indicated irregular fracturing of the cancellous bone and slight irregularity in the axis of the cut or broken surface. - Cut or broken surface lacked the uniformly planar surface and pattern of evenly cut bone that would be expected if the bone had been cut with a sharp knife. - Series of experiments: testing different blade options and when all of the chicken parts were defleshed, degreased, were examined grossly and microscopically. - Conclusion: altered by a dull knife, axe, and the digging tool. (page 10) - Finger being struck with a dull knife, dull shovel, mattock, or similar instrument. Conceivably, this type of alteration also could have been produced if a car door was forcibly closed on the finger. - Another case: an unauthorised burial site within the cemetery recovered a number of bones. - Neither soft tissue nor odour was present. - All of the bones showed considerable surface cracking and exfoliation of the periosteal surfaces. Many areas of the bones were fragmented and/or eroded. (page 11) - Originated from an old grave in the cemetery and not the recent missing person. alterations had not been made perimortem but much more recently. READING 3: Ubelaker 2003 (page 1) - - - Case: discovered partially decomposed remains in a truck in Syracuse, NY. Forensic analysis: human remains from all locations consisted of a left and right upper extremities, a segment form the pelvic area and one thigh. Evidence of amputations and blunt force trauma. Tissue remains suggest an african american female teen, that was previously buried. Alterations show bacterial/fungal growth promoted underground. Radiological analysis: CT scans showed spina bifida, healed fracture on right wrist. Grooves on outer cortical surfaces of the right femur, suggesting saw as a tool for amputation. Then used these scans to compare them to 3 missing people’s scans. One person matched with a considerable degree, but it was not concluded. Then brought info to the FBI that is the only lab that does mitochondrial DNA testing in the US. But, before doing this, a full anthropological exam is needed to be done. Anthropological analysis: anatomical inventory is done at Smithsonian; detailed descriptions are done. Remains suggested to be female (by pelvis), teen. Another scan revealed antemortem fractures that were corroborated with a radiologist. No ancestry was done, because the skull was missing and so were parts of the skeleton. - Antemortem: occurring before death. - - DNA analysis: small mtDNA is known to have a high rate of mutation. There are more copies of mtDNA in cells than regular DNA. So mtDNA is chosen when the material is old and degraded. Especially useful when known materials are available for sampling (like mother’s blood that was taken as sample). After analysis, the sample from the mother matched the sample from the daughter (remains). Final: victim was the suspected missing person. COD was listed as “trauma with undetermined aetiology (causation)”, and the manner of death a homicide. Body was found 5y later. Class 04: Module 2, Part A January 16th 2024 IN CLASS (cont. and end of Module 1) - Human factors: - Funerary process - Obviously humans don’t bury themselves, so this is a process that involves the community they left. - Depending on how you bury the dead, there will be more or less artefacts; in coffins, there are more bones. In cremation, there are less bones. - This is a human factor because human factors influence the preservation of the bones. - Grave disturbance - When reusing graves, the first body needs to be pushed to make room for the second. - It is NOT that they are buried at the same time, but environmental factors (or with the help of human activity) the body moves down further into the earth. - Grave robbery - Robbing of artefacts. Robbers usually make holes in the coffin, and reaches in to take artefact. This is why the remains are usually disturbed. Because, they don’t open the coffin and take things out without disturbance. - Excavation and storage - Shovels or tractors can ruin remains. - Sometimes, storage can preserve them, but it needs to be done well. - - - Storage of bones has an effect too; ribs are lighter, and so you cannot place items at the bottom of the box and then fill the top with femurs. Analysis and manipulation - When handling bones, you can damage the molecular level of the bone. The impact of studying bones is still in study. - Callipers are useful but also put immense pressure at the extremities of bone. Importance of experimentation - Traceology - Traceology is a term that may refer to the study of any traces (whether residues or surface alterations), usually in the context of tool use, and can be synonymous with microwear. However, these terms are often used synonymously to refer to surface modifications that arise during use, hafting, handling, and storage. - So for example, placing bones and conducting different stampedes (with different weights) or by different animal hooves. - Trauma reproduction - Ubelaker 1997 described it: “To reinforce my impression, I conducted a series of experiments. Chicken thighs and wings were purchased, recognizing that the cortical thickness and cancellous bones on the extreme ends were similar to those of the relevant aspect of human phalanges. The chicken parts were struck with a sharp knife, a dull knife, a digging tool and an axe. Parts were also tested by slamming them in the doors and hatchback of a 1974 Ford Pinto (the same model as that owned by the victim). One possible scenario suggested by the prosecutor was that the finger may have been damaged by the car door slamming on it during a - struggle. Following the testing, all of the chicken parts were defleshed, degreased, and examined grossly and microscopically.” - Perimortem event of trauma. Importance of experimentation - Bodyforms: depending on what the dead had internally, the skeleton could be found at a different position before and after death. - For example, the food left over in the cadaver could have exploded as a result of pressure and chemical reactions. - This explosion could cause the movement of the skeleton. (module 2 start) - Definitions and History - Fathers of the discipline - R.W. Shufeldt (1850-1934) - Ornithologist and military surgeon. - Seen as a war hero. And “father” of paleopathology. - Trauma on bird bones. - Word (paleopathology) defined on footnote (1893): “all diseased or pathological conditions found fossilised in the remains of extinct or fossil animals”. - Racist; even caught with photos of young naked women. - Marital court and dismissal. - Contribution reconsidered. - M.A Ruffer (1859-1917) - Bacteriologist and hygienist. - Worked in Cairo on mummies. - Made huge contributions to science and medicine in general. - “True” hero during WWI and alternate father of paleopathology. - First time he used the word was in studies with mummies and he defined a couple words. - Science: independent study. Not interdisciplinary. - Disease: retrospective diagnosis with proof therefore needs knowledge in medicine and how certain conditions cause certain occurrences in bones. - Need to already know about the disease to study it. This is not the study of novel diseases. Usually, when studying bones that are older, they are diseases that we’ve already classified currently or in the recent past. - Word paleopathology was defined: “science of disease which can be demonstrated in human and animal remains from ancient time”. - Demonstrated: not extinct disease. - For example: smallpox: it is a disease that doesn’t exist in the current population, but we know alot about it because in the older population enough of it was - - - - described in articles, or notes and drawn out or documented (archives). Sometimes it is part of the game; we can’t say for sure as we don’t have the usual data to diagnose anything, but it’s the best given the indentation on bone. Comparison = actualism (?) J.F. Esper - Zoologist creationist. - Proof of trauma on a “dragon” femur. - At the time, dinosaurs weren’t known to have existed, and so when this guy found a LARGE bone, they applied whatever knowledge they had of this form of animal to the bone.They explained this by the theory of dragons. - Not a scientific method so not a paleopathological approach. - There was no diagnosis, no data to prove anything, except for personal bias. - Also this study was NOT reproducible!!! - He was most famous, but not the most accurate when talking about the origins of paleopathology. B. O’Connor - In French because in the 17th century, the international language at the British court was french. But it is addressed to a British physician. - He was a true scientist because he used the scientific method: description of lesions. Functional interpretation, diagnosis. - He tried to understand the bones in terms of what they presented, he cross referenced and then analysed and attempted to diagnose. - Even though this may not be correct today, or may not be the correct diagnosis, HE APPLIED THE SCIENTIFIC PROCESS! - Proved that human spined were made of fused bones. (1774-1913): the evolution of an unnamed science. - There was a lot of paleopathological study but without the classification as so. - No paleopathological specialists, there were: physicians, anthropologists and palaeontologists. - Term wasn’t defined yet! - Coming from different fields: Egyptology, paleoanthropology, prehistoric ethnography, American studies… - Tried to apply what they know from their fields to understand findings they were presented with. - J. Le Baron - Wrote first thesis about bone lesions but in a prehistoric context. - E.A. Hooton (1887-1954) - First study at a population level. - Demographic reflection. - Paleoepidemiological approach is the combining of the frequency or variation of a disease and the chronology of that disease. - - - - Example, in 1200, there was no description of the Black Plague, so we know it probably wasn’t spreading or wasn’t existant. - In the 1500s, there are multiple descriptions of the Black Plague, so we’d know that during this time, the people were struggling with this; maybe there were also implications on food source as a result as well, that may show malnutrition too (?) - At this time, people were burning the dead too to prevent spreading, and also there were many rodents (obviously) so gnawing of bones is likely to be witnessed. Importance of reference collection. - Smithsonian, Pretorian… Reference as we know everything about those bones, and we use those as a reference for new data. (After WWII) - Increase of history interest and past population lifestyle. - Motivation: lets learn about the past to prevent WWIII!! - Increased wind geographical and epidemiological concepts - Increase in clinical knowledge and practices. - More knowledge (with evolution of science and force of care given war) on treatment and diagnosis of medical conditions. - This was useful to researchers. - Also, with the war, there was a mass exodus of scholars from Europe to the US, where researchers did more work than they would've done in the US. - There was a mass of research done. - J.L. Angel - Father of modern paleopathology - 4 scopes of Paleopathology : - Importance of semiology. - Relationship between health state and past Society. - Relationship between demography and health. - Study of growth and nutrition. (New Archeology movement) - Going from the individual level to the population level. From disease to health. - Multidisciplinarity: integration of historical method, paleoclimatology (hydrology, geology), archeology, bioarcheology, archeothanatology, ancient medical books. - For this, I need to know the context of the time. Important for today, because I need to apply that framework and not the modern one to ancient remains. And t modern remains, need to apply modern concepts and modern analysis. - Doesn’t mean you don’t have to be critical of the information provided in those books. Sometimes, it could be wrong! - - Before this, we were more interested in the wealthy people: for example we wanted to find the king’s grave and not the farmer’s, But there was more information provided by the farmer's grave than the kings' usually! - Another example, “Inuit people lacked vegetable sources”... well the climate doesn’t allow for growth of vegetables, and so their systems have adapted. Need to take care to put IN CONTEXT. - (New Method) - Integration of numerical imaging. Reconstruction, process of injury, intern mechanism. - Methods to recreate the evolution of the disease. - Integration of molecular analysis. Identifying precise infection, demonstrative diagnosis, paleomicrobiology, paleogenetic. - New push to paleoarchaeology, with all this new information. - (Today): Integrative paleopathology - Study of pathological context in the past: health, society, environment. - Multi-disciplinary method: general morphology, micro-morphology, histology, biochemistry, molecular analysis and genetic analysis. - Study of human and animal remains. - Study of forensic methods, ancient medical methods and books. Chapter 1 Grauer 2011 - Definition of disease in paleopathology that we will follow: “The term “disease” within paleopathology (and the medical community) is broader and more encompassing. Stedman’s Medical Dictionary defines disease, in part, as “an interruption, cessation, or disorder of body functions, systems, or organs... A morbid entity characterised usually by at least two of these criteria: recognized etiological agent(s), identifiable group of signs and symptoms, or consistent anatomical alterations...”. Adopting this definition leads researchers to evaluate many types of conditions affecting the human body, including those with potential sociocultural etiologies, such as malnutrition, interpersonal violence, and deliberate body modification.” - Not one we use in everyday life, but the one we will use in paleopathology. - This present multiple limits because: - 1. Multiple interpretations; nothing is written exactly. Or believed uniquely and wholly. - 2. Need to know a lot of fields. - Limits are defined by Grauer as: “the multiple interpretations reflective of the complex and multidisciplinary nature of paleopathology”. - Also: “Increasingly, however, making a productive contribution today to paleopathology not only requires superb familiarity with bone and/or preserved tissue, it requires a firm knowledge in microbiology, physiology, biochemistry, medicine, archeology, history and human culture, to name a few. Hence, the formulation of new questions within paleopathology has required even more of researchers, as they seek new means of obtaining answers”. - Also: “One of the key tenets upon which paleopathologists build their arguments is that disease processes occurring today are - - similar to those in the past, i.e. that pathogenesis does not change over time. We clinically identify the presence of a disease in modern humans, and assert that finding the same indicators on tissue samples from the past indicates that the identical pathogen or disease process was responsible. This is, in fact, a key reason why clinical case studies have been so important to paleopathological research. But recent work on the genera Mycobacterium and Treponema, calls this assumption into question, as the evolutionary paths of these pathogens are complex. If we argue that pathogens are capable of genetically changing over time, which might alter how they affect their hosts, then we must grapple with the assumption made in paleopathology that they do not. Osteological paradox: about the fact that a disease won't affect all bodies in the same way. Some people will have traces and some won’t. - Diseased individuals who lived long enough to manifest skeletal lesions were healthier than those who died of an illness before it could manifest in their skeletons. - Grauer ch: brought to light the ramifications of demographic nonstationarity (that population size does not remain constant over time and is especially sensitive to changes in fertility), selective mortality (that populations under investigation represent those who died, not those who were living), and hidden heterogeneity (that individuals vary in their susceptibility to disease). The authors show how datasets can be interpreted. Limits in paleopathology is that diseases do not have the same effect on everybody. Spreading is different, traces are different. - Some people have a disease their whole life and die without a trace of it in the bone (infection, trauma, etc). READING 4: Grauer 2011 (page 1) - Definitions in bioarcheology/pathoarcheology vary due to our preconceived notions about these terms. (page 2) - Paleopathological focus might begin with recognition of bony changes that are quantified and qualified: that is, recognition of “consistent anatomical alterations”; but continues with the exploration of singular or multifactorial causes of these alterations and the ramifications of the conditions on our understanding of human life. - Relied on comparisons of clinical manifestations of disease to lesions found in ancient remains, paved the way for histological and radiographic investigation into ancient disease within paleopathology today. (page 3) - Earnest Hooton (1887–1954) - His unit of analysis moved from the individual to the population. - The presence of pathological conditions such as trauma, dental disease, and osteoarthritis, for instance, were inventively viewed across space and time, and interpreted alongside the effects of a changing environment, food preparation, diet, and the presence of infectious disease. - Møller-Christensen - Particularly interested in leprosy, brought to paleopathology rigorous criteria for diagnosis coupled with a population approach - Calvin Wells - Provided paleopathologists with a large body of work that systematically evaluated the presence of a wide variety of skeletal conditions. - Ackerknecht - Offered a synthesis of many paleopathologists’ work. - Brothwell and Sandison (1967), for instance, speaking to the “European approach” posited that “the time has come for some form of palaeopathological stock-taking and pooling of recently collected data” - Jarcho - Was calling for a “revival of paleopathology” in the U.S. and criticised the direction that field had taken, which contributed to weak methodo- logical work, the unsystematic collection of data, and the increasing marginalisation of paleopathology from both the medical and archaeological communities. (page 4) - Perhaps, it can be argued, the most profound changes within paleopathology have not come from focusing on populations rather than individuals, but rather have arisen with the influence and inclusion of different theoretical paradigms. - Increasingly, however, making a productive contribution today to paleopathology not only requires superb familiarity with bone and/or preserved tissue, it requires a firm knowledge of microbiology, physiology, biochemistry, medicine, archaeology, history, and human culture, to name a few. (page 5) - One could argue that paleopathological research is a theoretical endeavour—meaning that there are no underlying assumptions being made or that multiple interpretations of data are not possible. - The key tenets upon which paleopathologists build their arguments is that disease processes occurring today are similar to those in the past, i.e. that pathogenesis does not change over time. - If we argue that pathogens are capable of genetically changing over time, which might alter how they affect their hosts, then we must grapple with the assumption made in paleopathology that they do not. - Paleopathologists have been selective in their use of archaeological theory, opting consistently to apply the “processual approach” in spite of archaeology’s. - The premise of the processual approach was that through rigorous and quantitative scientific investigation of mortuary remains, researchers could begin to piece together social dimensions of the past. Social dimensions, such as status, were viewed as predictable and recognizable responses to human environmental adaptation. - Deemed “positivist” and “deterministic” by opponents, who argued, in part, that developing scientific and statistical correlations between material artefacts within space and time did not equal “objective truth” about the past. (page 6) - Wood et al. brought to light the ramifications of demographic nonstationarity (that population size does not remain constant over time and is especially sensitive to changes in fertility), selective mortality (that populations under investigation represent those who died, not those who were living), and hidden heterogeneity (that individuals vary in their susceptibility to disease). - For example, individuals displaying pathological lesions do not necessarily represent the “sickest” individuals, but rather might indicate immunological strength. - Recently published work exploring the association between epistasis (the interaction between two or more genes) and pathological condition, epigenetics (which explores the external influences on gene behaviour) and disease, and the evolution of disease, to name a few, directly and indirectly offer paleopathologists tantalising new prospects for skeletal analysis and interpretation. (page 7) - All this begs the question of whether we agree on the classification of diseases in the first place, since many metabolic and endocrine diseases can be classified as growth disorders; and erosive joint disorders, suspected to be triggered by infectious pathogens, can be arguably classified as infectious disease. (page 8) - Need to look beyond the usual anthropocentric interpretations of disease in the past, which have humans as both the instigator and victim of change, towards an ecological approach—an approach where numerous environmental variables impact one another, many outside humans’ direct control. (page 9) - Complex interactions between human and animal hosts and pathogens are better understood, and the dynamic relationship between humans and animals becomes more readily appreciated. - Argue that studying mechanisms of disease may be more critical to paleopathology than attempts at diagnosis. (page 10) - Variability exists in every part of the human skeleton, with the concept of “disorder” being created at times artificially in an effort to derive meaning from human variation. - Arguments for the importance of placing data in historical, social, political, and economic contexts. Class 05: Module 2, Part B January 18th 2024 IN CLASS - Interdisciplinarity - Paleopathology is a science of a cross-road: - Archaeology; because works on ancient remains. - Bioanthropology; because know how the body works, how pathology works. - Medicine; methods of observing pathology. NOT healing. - Paleopathology is a science: - Observation of the facts: take objective notes, and not romanticise what you are visualising. - Systemisation: there is a process you will follow throughout all the research you will do. - Objectivity (data control): data needs to be controlled by another researcher. - Ex. asking someone else to measure to check against your original value. Or going back to look at and retake the measurement a couple days after first measurement. - Reproducibility: Need to get same results, obviously taking into account the small variation. Only an issue if the variation is significant enough. - - - - Refutability: peer reviewed data and articles. Sent in a journal (AGBA), and allowed to be analysed by other researchers that are specialised in what you study, to see if they can refute the data and conclusion. - BUT generally, you need to be your own “manager” as they always look to refute the smallest details, so you always want to make sure you are submitting your best work and are following the scientific approach. - Demonstration of theory: - Knowing to recognise: need of practise. - Need to recognise (with practise) when something is pathological. - Testing to know: need for advanced research. - Need to know how the body reacts in certain cases, also done with practice. - Therefore, like other fields, you either need to BE the researcher, or use the research available to you. Paleopathology is a science of disease: - Semiology: the science of signs - Ex. signs of diseases on bones. - Aetiology: what caused those signs? - Ex. After fracture, bone will heal itself if taken care of, but if not, then will see a particular pattern and can tally it up to unrepaired bone break. - Pathogeny: mechanisms. - Nosology: classification. Paleopathology is also a science of biology and anatomy: - Normal morphological variation - Histology; molecular knowledge - Biomechanics; how the body reacts to movement - Any movement you do has an impact on the bones; for instance if you are a surgeon, the impact your bones in your hands take is evident in the skeleton. - Enthesis - Where muscle attaches onto bones. Muscle contractions for example, enable an activity in the skeleton too, that allow movement. This can be seen on the bone. - Prenatal and growth activities. - Compared anatomy. - Foetus bones were once thought to be frog bones. But then realised they were baby bones. Paleopathology is a science of imaging and microbiology: - Radiography - CT Scan/ microCT - Microcomputed tomography (microCT or μCT) is a non-destructive imaging tool for the production of high-resolution three-dimensional (3D). - MRI - Not useful for bones; only on soft tissue. - CT scans take a fast series of X-ray pictures, which are put together to create images of the area that was scanned. An MRI uses strong magnetic fields to take pictures of the inside of the body. - aDNA (ancient DNA of humans and pathogens) - Proteomic analysis using digestive enzymes and mass spec. Paleopathology is a science of the past: - Notion of “remains” - Are just a sample of the people who died in that society. - Ex. if a cemetery buried specific people (like people with leprosy) NOT indicative of the entire population in that cemetery or of that age. - Incomplete information - Missing bones is not always a problem, or missing information is not always a concern unless it prevents further research. - Conservation vs. Representation - When you have a skeleton, it could be really well conserved, but the parts that are well conserved will not be representative of good information. - Maybe you’ll know the stature, but wouldn’t know other things like age or sex. - Sometimes, the bones that are least conserved are the ones that are MOST representative. - Taphonomy. Archeologist - Taphonomy: special conservation. - Special care for archeological remains: - Special record forms. - Premade forms that you can take on site with you. - Director of excavation usually tells you a highlighter code for all data. - Ex. green is fragmented but conserved bone, pink is fragment non-conserved. - Form is in SURGICAL position. - Safer excavation and adapted management. - Recording of as much information as possible - Ex. calcification (chondrocytes that start calcifying bones and other things), pathological position (special burial or maybe with calcification, cannot be stretched to lie downwards), vanishing pathologies or bones. - Archeological context: observation in situ - Need to keep in mind that cannot go back. So need to be sure to have taken all the data ON SITE!! - Destructing methods - Special care for osteological remains. - Special record forms - Safer excavation and adapted management - Recording of as much information as possible - Ex : calcification, pathological position, vanishing pathologies or bones. - - - - - Bioanthropologist - Normal anatomical variation between humans and populations. - Normal anatomical variation during growth and ageing. - Determination of biological profile. - Dealing with the conservation state: having multiple methods. - If you don't have a pelvis (hard to know age at death and gender, so need to know other methods). Pathologist - Osteological tissue process. - Recognising and translating them into syndromes. - Nosology of diseases. - Categorising pathology. - Prevent pseudo-pathology (paleopathomimic). - Historical dimension of human pathogen cohabitation. Integrative (ONE) paleopathology - Grauer chapter 33 (2023) - Needs of transdisciplinarity: - “Within the 21st century, we have opportunities to further advance our discipline by engaging in transdisciplinary studies that bring from deep time to contemporary issues. Similarly, combining recent biomedical methodological advances in genomics and pathophysiology with theoretical “big pictures” drawn from evolutionary insights and comprehensive ONE Health (OH) approaches will also serve to advance paleopathology”. - “Transdisciplinarity emerged in reaction to the strict boundaries between academic disciplines that discouraged collaboration and knowledge sharing. The term is used to describe research approaches that transcend individual disciplines, drawing on methods, theories, and knowledge from many fields, often to solve real-world problems”. - ONE health concept: multiple case studies, but let's regroup them and use them for something bigger than just one population. - Some historians specialise in the study of a couple years, but for anthropologists, need to know more, because knowing the history of disease and history of humanity is very useful on a grand scale. - Paleopathology for today’s issues: - - - - “One of these directions may be how our knowledge of how disease has in the past can be used to inform public health initiatives in the present. Paleopathologists understand that pandemics must be conceptualised as long-term processes, whose impact is framed by prior conditions, both social and medical, with outcomes that can vary significantly depending upon political, economic, and environmental factors. Decades of paleopathological and historical studies of plague and other pandemics can be leveraged to engage with our current health crisis”. Including evolutionary concepts: - “For paleopathology, this means that our appreciation of health in the past must be informed by context, at varying temporal scales. As with DoHaD (Developmental Origins of Health and Disease), EM provides another important point of departure for an explicit evolutionary focus in paleopathology”. - “Plomp et al. (2022a) organise their interdisciplinary treatment of evolutionary paleopathology around six key categories originally proposed for the study of EM (Williams & Nesse, 1991): (1) co-evolution of host and pathogen; (2) constraints on selection; (3) mismatch with current industrialised societies; (4) physiological defences; (5) at the expense of health; and (6) trade-offs”. - Ex. Sickle cell anaemia; why didn’t evolution erase this disease? Because it is homozygous recessive. If you have one allele, you will be resistant to malaria, and not ill. But, if you have both, you will be sick!! Including veterinary concepts: - “The integration of the medical sciences in a fully ecological perspective appears most well developed in the veterinary sciences and organisations focused upon preserving endangered species or studying natural history”. - “The human species is indeed global, but its disease susceptibilities, both historical and modern, are often similar to those of animals, as manifestations of disease in humans and animals are embedded and entangled within shared evolutionary and environmental contexts”. - Ruffer (1913): “science of disease which can be demonstrated in human and animal remains from ancient time”. Integrative paleopathology: - “Through the integration of an evolutionary perspective with OM/OH perspectives, we generate a more complete, more impactful narrative of the past, with implications for contemporary veterinary and human biomedical sciences. This initiative requires combining the study of ancient remains of all forms, faunal and human, and subscribing to expansive global and environmental inquiry that characterises much of veterinary science. This approach differs significantly from the relatively decontextualized diagnostic strategies of human biomedicine”. READING 5: Grauer 2023 (page 1) - Transdisciplinarity and Paleopathology - - The term is used to describe research approaches that transcend individual disciplines, drawing on methods, theories, and knowledge from many fields, often to solve real- world problems. Emphasises creativity, collaboration, and community-engagement, encouraging the integration of non-academics into research and the production of knowledge. (page 2) - Agarwal (2021) emphasises the multifactorial nature of bone loss and that features “such as genetics, ethnicity, nutrition, physical activity, parity, and lactation” are key influences on bone maintenance. - Comparative studies help inform our contemporary perspective on osteopenia, osteoporosis, and other metabolic disorders affecting bone, and the variables instrumental in predicting and potentially ameliorating these conditions in modern populations. - As in the case of bone loss cited above, the definition of “normative” risk factors for atherosclerosis must be reevaluated and that modern medicine will benefit from mummy science and paleopathology. - Example: using 20th-century frozen remains and archival samples, researchers have isolated ancient DNA (aDNA) of the deadly influenza virus. Results indicate that this influenza strain is intermediate between birds and mammals, having been transmitted to mammals. (page 3) - Facilitated the development of antiviral drugs and vaccines. - This recent public awareness of epidemics, public health initiatives, and syndemics pro- vides a new platform on which we can move the field of paleopathology in new directions. - We have also learned that morbidity and mortality directly depend upon individuals mounting effective immune responses, which are greatly influenced by life history stressors that begin in the womb and continue through the life course. (page 4) - Issues of Scale in Research - While the significance of research articles goes unquestioned, the role played by case studies has garnered attention. - Identified two important aspects of case studies: - (1) value in contributing to medico-historical debates and - (2) illustrating rigorous differential diagnoses. - Often anchor broader discussions of the time period or the results of methods. - Evolutionary anthropology and evolutionary medicine (EM) are not novel approaches, but to explicitly formulate an Evolutionary Paleopathology links them to the transdisciplinarity discussed in the previous section. - Evolutionary Paleopathology - Nuanced appreciation of developmental plasticity, knowledge of epigenetic factors, intergenerational influences upon health are all features that influence the course of disease, whether embodied in an individual or abstracted to focus upon the condition itself. - The DoHaD hypothesis, “history is becoming increasingly important, and a consideration of different temporal scales – evolutionary, developmental, generational and biographical – are essential to our analysis of disease and what Krieger (2013) has referred to as the emergent ‘embodied phenotype’”. (page 5) - DoHaD (Developmental Origins of Health and Disease). - Treatment of evolutionary paleopathology around six key categories originally proposed for the study of EM: - (1) co-evolution of host and pathogen (2) constraints on selection (3) mis- match with current industrialised societies (4) physiological defences (5) reproduction at the expense of health and (6) trade-offs. (page 6) - ONE Medicine, ONE Health and ONE Paleopathology ONE Medicine - “As socioeconomic progress demands sustained improvements in health for humans, their domestic animals, and the environment, our institutions recognize the need to move towards a “one health” perspective- an approach that we hope will be the foundation of our discussions. - Animal Paleopathology - ONE Paleopathology must appreciate the broad perspective that the study of nonhuman animals and the veterinary sciences contribute to the study of ancient global health. - The human species is indeed global, but its disease susceptibilities, both historical and modern, are often similar to those of animals, as manifestations of disease in humans and animals are embedded and entangled within shared evolutionary and environmental contexts. - The study of animal disease in the past faced special challenges not frequently encountered by those who study humans. - The archaeological record of faunal remains, for example, includes relatively few complete burials, most instead being fragmented and dispersed. (page 7) - For humans, the issue is not length of life in clinical examples, but the efficacy of modern medical treatments, not the least being antibiotics and vaccinations, which attenuate the impact of infectious conditions. - A global ONE Paleopathology problem-oriented perspective driven by the ecological, contextual focus of veterinary science, coupled with advances in genomics, may override concerns about fragmented and incompletely preserved remains, along with the failure of many infectious diseases to manifest pathognomonically in bone. - ONE Paleopathology - A ONE Paleopathology approach also unites molecular methods with problem-oriented paleopathology to identify in- stances wherein significant evolutionary changes occurred and fully incorporates these findings within human/animal/environmental contexts. - Examples: - TUBERCULOSIS: - The research has also succeeded in defining pathological tissues most likely to yield aDNA, a critical contribution given that destructive sampling of tuberculosis lesions remains the method of genomic choice. (page 8) - Our understanding of the real impact of tuberculosis is greatly limited by simply focusing on finding the oldest example of the disease in human remains or mapping the genome of the pathogen. - CANINE DISTEMPER: - Evolutionary study of morbilliviruses, a closely related cluster of viruses that cause canine distemper (CDV), human measles (HMV), and rinderpest (RPV) in cattle. By engaging faunal paleopathology, historical sources, molecular analyses and morbillivirus pathogenesis, and epidemiology, this interdisciplinary effort - argued convincingly for a South American origin of CDV developing out of the measles epidemics. GLANDERS AND MELIOIDOSIS - Was transmitted to humans before mechanisation, when horses were used extensively for transportation and were often crowded into urban environments. - It can infect multiple tissues including bone and does not induce unique lesions. Thus, it is difficult to diagnose from pathological findings alone. - Hence, the disease still poses a significant health risk to human populations, and vaccine research is currently being promoted. Interestingly, recent deaths due to melioidosis in the US have been traced to rocks from endemic regions introduced into aromatherapy products. (page 9) - Genetic and epidemiological studies also indicate that the virulence traits of Burkholderia pathogens initially evolved as adaptations to the rhizosphere environment. - Since the rhizosphere is heavily impacted by farming, irrigation, and the introduction of animals and non-native vegetation, human activities potentially played a role in the emergence of these pathogens. - Can paleopathological evidence of the presence of these diseases be directly or indirectly inferred from skeletal remains, or will aDNA analysis be the primary means of detecting the pathogens in the absence of definitive bone lesions? - Impacted by war, trade, migration, animal husbandry, environmental climate (wet conditions, flooding from storms?), and subsistence farming practices? (page 10) - CDV, his- torical records directed the paleopathological, epidemiological, and codon usage studies, while for glanders, the results of genetic analyses guide us where to initiate historical and paleopathological investigations. - Partnerships with emerging fields such as sustainability, indigenous studies, and decolonizing programs. READING 6: Mitchell 2011 (page 1) - Archaeological group is composed of the skeletal or mummified remains, or parasites that affected them. - Second group is com- prised of material created by earlier people, such as written texts, paintings or sculptures. - Social processes analysed for their impact upon health range from the slave trade, intercontinental exploration, military expeditions, and the industrial revolution. - We might expect that the best place to look for evidence of dis- ease in the past would be texts written by doctors of the time. However, this is often not the case. Ancient medical texts were typically written from the perspective of that civilization. - Secondly, medical authors may have never seen the disease or treatment they described in their text, having copied it from earlier texts to demonstrate scholarly knowledge of their predecessors. - A disease described in a medical text may not necessarily have been present in the population at the time the text was written. (page 2) - Thirdly, texts may have been written with a bias or slant in an attempt to impress a potential patron or person in power, and this could have affected the content. - - - - Finally, illustrations in medical texts were often made by non-medically trained artists who may never have seen the disease or treatment they were asked to illustrate. Disease as “at once a biological event, a generation-specific repertoire of verbal constructs reflecting medicine’s intellectual and institutional history, an occasion of potential legitimation for pub- lic policy, an aspect of social role and individual – intrapsychic – identity, a sanction for cultural values, and a structuring element in doctor and patient interactions”. The difficulty in reconciling the biological diagnosis with the social diagnosis using evidence that is heavily dependent upon the social context Cunningham believes that the important issue is to understand social diagnosis, in particular how diagnosis happened in past communities. - I have termed this argument the Cunningham debate. Some modern researchers have come to the conclusion that for these reasons diagnosing retrospectively is not possible, and it should not be attempted (Cunningham, 2002). They assert that determining a modern biological diagnosis is just not relevant, and that we should be concentrating on investi- gating social diagnosis, the name that people in the past allocated to a condition The “misconceived gap” (Gould, 2003). It is a psychological barrier that exists as a consequence of differing terminology, philosophy, and accepted dogma regarding research methodology. (page 3) - Pitfall occurs when the material consulted is not representative of the original body of work produced on that disease episode. - Clear descriptions of a disease would allow us to show that disease was present in that community, but not to state that it was absent in certain regions or subsets of that population if we were relying on the lack of reference to the disease in texts from those areas to prove this. - They just might not have survived for us to read. - Thorough knowledge of the literature to which that apparent eyewitness would have had access at the time they wrote is the only way to be sure they did not copy that description. - Medical authors in Tudor England described the effects of the bad air (miasma) emanating from the earth driving subterranean animals such as moles, snakes and rats to the surface before a plague struck. They were however repeating almost word for word sections from the Canon of Medicine by the tenth century CE Arabic physician Avicenna. - Translations of source texts are always a focus of contention. add another degree of distance from the original source. (page 4) - In other words, dictionaries of old languages are not always perfect for medical terms as they were written by linguists who were not medically trained. - Sometimes the list of symptoms given may not seem to match up with any single modern disease. - It is not that easy to know if a given disease in the past was expressed in the same manner as it is today. While the nature of immune responses have clearly been under selection, the fundamentals of much human genetic material does not seem to have changed fundamentally over the last 10,000 years, with the exception of a few genes. - Cannot necessarily presume that pathogen genetic material stayed static too. - Twelve pitfalls in retrospective diagnosis that might lead to mistakes: - 1. Insufficient information preserved in written sources to make a diagnosis - 2. Sources consulted unrepresentative of original body of texts produced - 3. Failure to realise an apparently eye witness record was copied from older texts - 4. Insufficient understanding of cultural context by researcher to use sources - 5. Using inadequate translations by others, instead of reading original sources - 6. Insufficient knowledge of disease symptoms by researcher to diagnose - 7. Placing undue weight on aspects of the evidence fitting a pre-existing theory - 8. Ignoring inconvenient symptoms to fit the modern understanding of disease - 9. Failure to consider that multiple concurrent diagnoses were present - 10. Failure to consider that diseases may evolve and change over the centuries - 11. Presuming the diagnosis must be a disease that still exists today - 12. Overstating the likelihood of a diagnosis being correct. - Another theory that could explain incompatibility of symptoms in an ancient text with those known today is that the disease may no longer exist. - What represents a good quality source, sufficiently clear to allow retrospective diagnosis. (page 5) - Chronicle of William of Tyre, detailed discussion recorded events during the life of King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem. Baldwin was William’s tutor. - The author of the text was not a doctor, but an educated man who had a very close relationship with Baldwin allowing him to be a credible eyewitness. - Despite his position in the clergy, he records the symptoms and signs clearly, without any religious interpretation. - Knowing what mediaeval onlookers thought was Baldwin’s diagnosis does help us to understand the cultural context and the social views of leprosy recorded by William of Tyre gives a clear series of symptoms as they presented themselves along a timeline. - Only one disease known to modern medicine fits this picture, and it fits it extremely well: leprosy. - Also helps us to understand the social consequences of the disease. - It might be thought strange that a boy with leprosy could ascend to the throne of any mediaeval Christian Kingdom, let alone the Kingdom of Jerusalem, due to the social stigma associated with the disease. - Careful reading of the symptom chronology in the texts shows that the diagnosis of leprosy had not been made before he was crowned. (page 6) - The Cunningham debate - Proposed by Cunningham that “disease is always experienced socially, that is it is not just a biological phenomenon but just as much a social phenomenon”. - Bunningham appears to be unhappy crossing the misconceived gap of Gould, between the sciences and the humanities. - No disease can take place without at least some of the body’s cells malfunctioning. Without the bio- logical component, there is no social component to disease. - If texts written by eye-witnesses record clear descriptions of the symptoms and signs of disease, especially in the presence of virtually diagnostic symptoms or signs, - Then, modern researchers will not be restricted by the cultural limitations that Cunningham fears. - I agree with him that past social diagnoses are often incompatible with modern biological diagnoses, but I do believe that in the right circumstances researchers can determine the modern biological diagnosis if the right information including symptoms and signs is available. - Most importantly of all, do they tell us anything about the past, or are they simply projections backwards of present-day issues and concerns.” Class 06: Module 2, Part C January 23rd 2024 IN CLASS - Excavating - Mandatory presence of bioarchaeology. - Using non-aggressive tools: wood,brush, towels. - Bones are fragile and so you need to use soft bristles; oftentimes it is the same tools that sculptures use that is light on the clay or marble. - Trowels instead of shovels, because they are less aggressive. - Leave bones in place until the last moment. - As much as you can though sometimes, you need to remove bones if there are multiple burials. - Sometimes you have to move bones before taking all the measurements before drawing and taking photos. - Sometimes though, the position of the individual tells us about the level of calcification and some underlying diseases. So you have to weigh the consequences of moving or not. - Bag it, tag it, take levation and measure. - Make accurate tags (labels) so that you know what it was, where it was found, etc when it is taken back to the lab. - Measure the elevation (is it deep in burial site, or at surface (earlier burial). - Also measure the finding too. Ex. width of skeleton or skull found. - Recording - Record forms according to age. - Because, for infants, there are more bones than adult bones, so they need different forms. - Drawing and pictures. - For some people, taking pictures is easier BUT sometimes the pictures don’t do it justice; there are shadows hiding bones, etc. - Sometimes, laser grids on graves and draw using that scale. - Disposition of every bones and artefacts. - Archaeothanatology: They take notes on the exact positions of the bones and artefacts. - Type of burial and MNI - Is it primary, secondary burial? Are there several people? And what is the MNI (minimal number of individuals). - Individual analysis - Osteobiography: biological profile - Imaging and histology - Using different imaging forms discussed in previous lectures. - Description of lesions and semiology. - Syndromes or functional disabilities. - Nosography or non-specific pathologies. - Global vision - Frequency of expression: - Raw prevalence. - - - Adjusted prevalence (anatomical region) By groups of nosography - Is it a trauma, infection or a growth issue? - Frequency in the population: - Geography (contrast two different populations from different areas). - Cultural groups (same but with culture). - Chronology (same but with two peoples over the course of time). Paleoradiology - Defined by R.K. Chhem in 2008. - “Using X-ray methods and technology to study human or animal bioarchaeological material”. - Use actual medical x-ray not to heal BUT to analyse. - Anatomical or diagnostic. Paleoimaging - All the methods producing images in an ecological context. - Photography, radiography, tomodensitometry (CT), micro-tomo (miCT), x-rays, MRIs - Multimodal, multidimensional, diachronic, holistic. Can use essentially these methods together or at different instances or under different positions or conditions to get a holistic vision of the remains. - First to study 2D imaging - W. Rontgen (1845-1923), german physicist discovered X-rays in 1896. Won Nobel prize in physics. - See image of first Roentgenogram (x-ray of his wife’s hand). - Then, was J.A. Bergonié (1857-1925) was a french physician and was first to use radiology to heal (radiotherapy). He was the father of radiobiology. - How do x-rays work? - Heating filament to produce electrons and then there is a process that will induce the acceleration of electrons. These electrons will then bombard the organism, which will excite molecules and will bounce off the screen and will create a picture of the subject you bombarded. - The types of x-rays you will get depend on the cells that the x-ray is passing though. For instance, skin cells are excited and therefore will show differently on as can than the bone cells. - X-rays in archeology - 1896: first radiography of mummies - Rise of Egyptology: willing of conservation - Identification of “fake mummies”; - Cat memorials; some scammers of ancient Egypt brought the mummy of the cat to the priest, but inside was all cotton (fake). - Can estimate age at death. - For example, unfused tibias, tell us that imaging is of a teenager. - Can estimate pathological conditions - IF there is bone pathology. - Offerings (can be seen in radiography). - X-rays image of Ramses II - - - In Cairo, but brought to France to be radiographed by tools in France. Caused scientific bridges and sharing of information. But, to export the body back to France to be studied; Ramses needed a passport!! - Legal; needed to happen to be brought to another country. - X-rays, problem? - Issue is that they produce FLAT pictures (because all volume is compressed into 2D images. - Superposition of information is a consequence. - Therefore, it is better to do a CT. - Still in 2D, but in several “slices” and so is more clear when needing to look at scans. - Called a CT scan: computed tomographic scan. - First CT scan was 6 min of pure radiation!!!! - Evolution of scan lead to several turning detectors. - Standardisation of data: DICOM. - Before that, every hospital had their own archiving system as well as their own “saving: of images" because each institution did it their own way: pdf, physical copy, jpeg, etc. This made it really hard to transfer information between countries or even between institutions. - Types - CT scan - MicroCT - Synchrotron images (expensive)... a way to bend particles circularly like a cyclotron. - MRI that works with magnets excite hydrogen molecules in the body. So it is not convenient for bones, but for soft tissue, it is very convenient because it contains water. - Useful for retrospective diagnostics. 3D imaging - Rise since 1980. - Higher quality, more efficient material and computers of the modern century allowed this. - It is a stacking of 2D images to create volume. - However, the pixel becomes voxel. - Can be used for: - Virtually unwrapped mummies. - In the past, they had to be unwrapped, which was bad for preservation of the mummy. - 3D impressions. - Quantifying lesions. - Microstructure modification. - Analysis of imprints of pathological non-conserved tissue. - Ex. cancer can be seen on the bones; as there is an effect on the bone itself when you have cancer. Paleohistology - Definition: analysis of histological traces of pathological process on ancient bone remains. - - - - - Mentally adding the cells that caused the traces. Have to imagine. - Since ancient cells have died, what you are looking for is the TRACES (mineralisation, fossilisation). Knowing the activity of each cell type. - Construction vs, destruction - Osteoblasts (OB) vs osteoclasts (OC) - Osteoblasts: cells that are constructing the bones and are creating the bones. - Osteoclasts: cells that destroy the bone. - So, ex. when you break your bone, the OCs will come first to clear up the mess and then the OBs will come and rebuild. 7 categories of histological lesions. - VITAMIN - Vascular lesions: rise = more OB, decline = more OC - Biomechanical Impact: bones react to constraints. - Ex. Walking or handcuffs that can leave imprints on bones. - Traumatic: accelerated primary bone formation and remodelling. - Abnormality: dysfunction of bone cells. - Ex. glass-like bones, osteoporosis. - Metabolic: deficiencies or hormonal imbalances. - Ex. scurvy, rickets or nutrient-deficiency in which the skeleton tries to create a skeleton with whatever nutrients and minerals it can. - Inflammatory: bones react to infection, dysfunction and friction as well. - Ex. cartilage pain due to rubbing down of synovial fluid. - Neoplastic: tumoural formation. - Ex. depending on where tumours are, this can or cannot be seen on the bone (impact). In archeology, need to chose: - Thin section vs tomography (better option as non-invasive). - If bone is already broken up, then it doesn’t really matter if you reform invasive procedure, as bad as it is. BUT when bones are ok, still better to use CT. - Taphonomic alterations - Need to keep in mind - Ex. big holes on skeleton; mayne NOT due to a pathology but just a taphonomic process. - Fossilised bones - No collagen, no organic parts. - So they need to use a petrography. - Difficulties to see lack of mineralisation. - Because they are fixed images, they can’t see chronology. Paleomicrobiology: - Definition: molecular detection of pathogens in ancient biological material - Ancient DNA or proteomic analysis. - - - If you have ancient DNA, you can have all the information you want, bUT not easy to get this DNA!! - Human or animal tissue or soil (petrous part of temporal bones or teeth. - Having a special part on cranial bones (petrous pyramid of cranial bones)... is the best part of the body to get DNA information (is conserved the most there through the years. - This part is located right above the ear. - Pathogens are viruses, bacteria, fungus, parasites, gut worms or prion. - Prions are proteinaceous infectious particles that cause transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Prions are extremely resistant to chemicals, heat, and radiation. - Pat