Pre-Columbian treponemal disease from 14th century AD Safed, Israel, and implications for the medieval eastern Mediterranean.

@article{Mitchell2003PreColumbianTD,
  title={Pre-Columbian treponemal disease from 14th century AD Safed, Israel, and implications for the medieval eastern Mediterranean.},
  author={Piers D. Mitchell},
  journal={American journal of physical anthropology},
  year={2003},
  volume={121 2},
  pages={
          117-24
        }
}
  • P. Mitchell
  • Published 1 June 2003
  • Medicine
  • American journal of physical anthropology
In 1912, 68 medieval crania were excavated from a cave at Safed in the eastern Mediterranean and brought to the United Kingdom. It is only recently that these skulls have been studied for evidence of disease. One adult individual demonstrates multiple lesions of the cranial vault, compatible with treponematosis. Radiocarbon dating suggests the year of death to be between 1290-1420 AD. This range equates to the mamluk period, just after the crusades. This is the oldest dated case of… 
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This short report describes a human skeleton from an archaeological site in England showing signs of treponemal disease. A radiocarbon determination indicates that it is firmly pre-Columbian in date.…
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This work moves beyond this age-old debate using an interdisciplinary approach that tackles broader questions to advance the understanding of treponemal infection (syphilis, yaws, bejel, and pinta) and its impact on people through time.
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Analysis of the skeletal remains of fifty children shows that 60% of child deaths occurred by the age of one year, and that age distribution was similar to the poorest developing world countries today, which suggests that health amongst the children at Parvum Gerinum was probably better than theChildren at a twelfth century crusader castle in Jordan, but worse than health in children from a Bronze Age site in Anatolia.
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One important finding from this study was that the cases of lower limb long bone spiral fractures had healed in a near-anatomical alignment, not what the authors would expect, as a proportion of these injuries would normally have been unstable and tend to heal poorly aligned.
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