Brief communication: neurotraumatological aspects of head injuries resulting from sharp and blunt force in the early medieval period of southwestern Germany

Approximately 10% (33 of 304) of the predominantly male skulls from the 6th through 8th centuries in southwestern Germany exhibit cranial fractures derived from blunt or sharp force trauma. No evidence of fracture healing characterizes 24% (n = 8) of these individuals. All nonhealed fractures were caused by sharp force, and four of these wounds cross the sagittal sinus. The lengths of these straight-edged wounds, produced exclusively by sword blows, measure around 8.0 cm for fatal, and about 5.0 cm for nonfatal wounds. Seventy-six percent (n = 25) of these skulls exhibit some healing, which indicates that these injuries did not lead to immediate death. In this group are all depressed fractures resulting from blunt force blows. Two thirds of the 45 cranial injuries noted on these 33 skulls are located on the left side of these individuals, with a concentration in the frontoparietal region. Bony indications of wound infection occur in four cases (12%). Three crania exhibit circular trepanations in association with fractures. These phenomena are discussed in the context of modern neurotraumatological knowledge.     

Paleoepidemiolgical patterns of trauma in a prehistoric population from central California

Skeletal trauma was investigated in a large collection of human remains from central California (N = 162 aged and sexed adults). Lesions investigated included cranial and long bone fractures, projectile wounds, and dislocation. Long bone fractures were found in 10.5% of individuals; overall, incidence by element was 2.3%. In addition, cranial injuries were found in 4.4% of complete adult crania. Projectile wounds were seen unambiguously in four individuals (with embedded obsidian fragments) and strongly suggested in two other individuals with partially healed lesions. Finally, one case of traumatic hip dislocation was also observed. In both incidence and patterning of injuries, this population is similar to other archeological groups from California. This evidence further supports earlier reports indicating that interpersonal aggression was quite common in prehistoric California.     

Sutural bone frequency in synostotic rabbit crania

This study tests the hypothesis that crania with synostosed sutures will have a significantly higher incidence of calvarial sutural bones than normal crania. Sutural bones were counted in seven calvarial sutures and compared among four groups of adult New Zealand white rabbit skulls: normal in-colony (NI) controls (N = 14), normal out-colony (NO) controls (N = 12), skulls with familial delayed onset (DO) coronal synostosis (N = 25), and skulls with experimentally immobilized coronal sutures (EI) (N = 20). Comparisons among groups were made with a Kruskal-Wallis one-way ANOVA and between groups with a Mann-Whitney U-test, using a Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. Significant differences (P > 0.05) were noted only in the coronal and sagittal sutures, with EI crania having the greatest number of coronal sutural bones; between group differences were undetectable for sagittal sutural bones. A post hoc two-sample binomial test for equal proportions showed that the distribution of coronal sutural bones among individuals across groups was even, while the distribution of sagittal sutural bones was significantly higher in EI crania. These results suggest that altered sutural forces of the calvaria contribute to an increased occurrence of sutural bones. However, the influence of inheritance on increased occurrence of sutural bones cannot be discounted, as reflected in the equivalent number of individuals across groups that possessed coronal sutural bones. Am J Phys Anthropol 102:555–563, 1997. © 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Evaluation of a New Method of Fossil Retrodeformation by Algorithmic Symmetrization: Crania of Papionins (Primates,Cercopithecidae) as a Test Case

Diagenetic distortion can be a major obstacle to collecting quantitative shape data on paleontological specimens, especially for three-dimensional geometric morphometric analysis. Here we utilize the recently -published algorithmic symmetrization method of fossil reconstruction and compare it to the more traditional reflection & averaging approach. In order to have an objective test of this method, five casts of a female cranium of Papio hamadryas kindae were manually deformed while the plaster hardened. These were subsequently “retrodeformed” using both algorithmic symmetrization and reflection & averaging and then compared to the original, undeformed specimen. We found that in all cases, algorithmic retrodeformation improved the shape of the deformed cranium and in four out of five cases, the algorithmically symmetrized crania were more similar in shape to the original crania than the reflected & averaged reconstructions. In three out of five cases, the difference between the algorithmically symmetrized crania and the original cranium could be contained within the magnitude of variation among individuals in a single subspecies of Papio. Instances of asymmetric distortion, such as breakage on one side, or bending in the axis of symmetry, were well handled, whereas symmetrical distortion remained uncorrected. This technique was further tested on a naturally deformed and fossilized cranium of Paradolichopithecus arvernensis. Results, based on a principal components analysis and Procrustes distances, showed that the algorithmically symmetrized Paradolichopithecus cranium was more similar to other, less-deformed crania from the same species than was the original. These results illustrate the efficacy of this method of retrodeformation by algorithmic symmetrization for the correction of asymmetrical distortion in fossils. Symmetrical distortion remains a problem for all currently developed methods of retrodeformation.     

Immunotherapy as a treatment of American cutaneous leishmaniasis: preliminary studies in Brazil.

A prophylactic vaccine composed of killed promastigotes of five stocks of Leishmania was tested as an immunotherapeutic agent against American cutaneous leishmaniasis (ACL). The agent was administered by deep intramuscular injection daily for 10 days, followed by a 10-day interval. Out of 62 patients so treated, 47 (76%) were considered clinically cured; 41 required 2-10 treatment courses and the other six 11-19 courses. None of the patients treated by immunotherapy displayed adverse side-effects. Immunotherapy proved to be effective in the treatment of single cutaneous lesions, multiple cutaneous lesions and in cases of mucocutaneous leishmaniasis. In comparison with chemotherapy (Glucantime), immunotherapy is less efficient and more prolonged but can be safely used when antimonials are contra-indicated or are found to be ineffective. Consideration is given to the treatment of victims of ACL living in rural areas remote from a medical centre.     

Ecological divergence among sympatric colour morphs in blood pythons, Python brongersmai

Blood pythons in northeastern Sumatra display a series of discrete colour morphs, even among hatchlings within a single clutch. The first step towards understanding the maintenance of this polymorphism is to test the null hypothesis that colour variation in this species has no major biological correlates. Data on >2,000 blood pythons killed for the commercial leather industry enabled us to test, and reject, this hypothesis. The four colour morphs differed significantly in most of the traits that we measured, including temporal and spatial abundances, sex ratios, age structures, mean adult body sizes, body shapes (tail length and body mass relative to snout-vent length), energy stores, numbers of gut parasites, prey types, feeding frequencies and clutch sizes. The causal basis for these associations remains unclear, but is likely to involve three processes: direct effects of colour, linkages between genes for colour and other traits, and correlated spatial heterogeneity in colour, morphology and ecology. The colour polymorphism may be maintained by frequency-dependent selection and genotype-specific habitat selection, because these sedentary ambush predators are under strong selection for effective camouflage to hide them from both predators and potential prey. In support of this hypothesis, similar colour polymorphisms have evolved independently in several other snake taxa that rely upon ambush predation. Received: 18 December 1997 / Accepted: 23 March 1998     

Brief communication: Artificial cranial modification in Kow Swamp and Cohuna

The crania from Kow Swamp and Cohuna have been important for a number of debates in Australian paleoanthropology. These crania typically have long, flat foreheads that many workers have cited as evidence of genetic continuity with archaic Indonesian populations, particularly the Ngandong sample. Other scientists have alleged that at least some of the crania from Kow Swamp and the Cohuna skull have been altered through artificial modification, and that the flat foreheads possessed by these individuals are not phylogenetically informative. In this study, several Kow Swamp crania and Cohuna are compared to known modified and unmodified comparative samples. Canonical variates analyses and Mahalanobis distances are generated, and random expectation statistics are used to calculate statistical significance for these tests. The results of this study agree with prior work indicating that a portion of this sample shows evidence for artificial modification of the cranial vault. Many Kow Swamp crania and Cohuna display shape similarities with a population of known modified individuals from New Britain. Kow Swamp 1, 5, and Cohuna show the strongest evidence for modification, but other individuals from this sample also show evidence of culturally manipulated changes in cranial shape. This project provides added support for the argument that at least some Pleistocene Australian groups were practicing artificial cranial modification, and suggests that caution should be used when including these individuals in phylogenetic studies. Am J Phys Anthropol 155:173–178, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Observations of dental diseases among prehistoric populations of Hungary

The incidence of dental disease among people in developing countries today raises questions about the variation in the oral health of prehistoric populations. Considering these questions, we offer observations describing several types of dental disease which occurred among certain prehistoric populations of Hungary. The dental remains of 162 individuals recovered from seven sites of the Neolithic, Copper, and Bronze Age periods were examined for evidence of caries, hypoplasia, and periodontal disease. Appropriate methods were used to describe and record these dental lesions. The incidence of dental caries was low by comparison to other prehistoric agriculturists except for two forms of root caries: cervical and cemental. These types accounted for 68% of all the carious teeth recorded. Enamel hypoplasia was also lower than expected, occurring on only 4% of the total number of teeth. Periodontal abscesses were rare but other milder forms of periodontal lesions were frequent. Alveolar bone resorption occurred in varying degrees and followed the expected age distribution. The few exceptions were children or adolescents whose crania had other lesions suggesting a mineral metabolic disturbance. The lower incidence of enamel caries is likely due to high fluoride ingestion which also may have influenced the expression of enamel hypoplasia. No clear population trends were seen in dental disease incidence except for cemental caries which were found among Copper and Bronze Age remains.     

Skeletal evidence of trauma in African apes, with special reference to the gombe chimpanzees

Incidence of cranial and postcranial skeletal trauma was investigated in samples of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes, P. troglodytes schweinfurthii), lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla), and bonobos (P. paniscus). The larger (adult) samples of chimpanzees (N=127 crania, 92 postcrania) and gorillas (N=136 crania, 62 postcrania) are curated at the Powell-Cotton Museum, Birchington, U.K. The bonobo collection (N=71 crania, 15 postcrania) is housed the Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale in Tervuren, Belgium. In addition, data were collected on the small but extremely well-documented skeletal sample from Gombe National Park (N=14 crania, 13 postcrania — including adults and adolescents). Cranial injuries, including healed fractures and bite wounds, were fairly frequent in the museum collection of chimpanzees (5.5% of individuals), but were twice as frequent in gorillas (11.0%). In the Gombe sample an even higher incidence was observed (28.6% of individuals). Bonobos, however, showed the lowest incidence of cranial trauma found among any of the African ape samples (1.4% of individuals). Postcranial trauma, documented most clearly by healed fractures, was seen in 21.7% of the Powell-Cotton chimpanzees, 30.8% of Gombe chimpanzees, 17.7% of gorillas, and in 13.3% of bonobos. Most of these lesions were found in the upper appendage. Nevertheless, highly debilitating healed fractures of the femur were also noted, most frequently and severe in female gorillas. The pattern of injuries suggests serious risks of falling in all free-ranging African apes, but also (in chimpanzees and gorillas) considerable risk from interindividual aggression, especially for males.     

Sex assessment using the proximal tibia

The proximal end of the human tibia is sexually dimorphic. Tibial condyles from 100 individuals in the Hamann-Todd Collection were measured. Regression equations retrodicted known sex with 86-95% accuracy. A test sample of 20 individuals also from the Hamann-Todd Collection was classified with 85-100% accuracy. A sample of 20 prehistoric individuals provisionally sexed by using crania and innominate bones was classified with 85-100% agreement. Thus, the proximal tibia may be useful in determining the sex of a skeleton.     

Artificial cranial deformation and fossil Australians revisited

Based on cranial characters shared by Homo erectus in Java and Homo sapiens in Australia, Australasia is widely considered the strongest case for a regional origin of modern humans. However, artificial vault deformation has been suggested to be the cause of "archaic" characters such as frontal recession in key fossil Australian crania. We use log-log plots of cranial arc versus chord measurements and we score nonmetric traits often thought to be associated with artificial deformation to make systematic comparisons across groups and deformation types to identify universal consequences of artificial deformation. Based on our large comparative sample (n = 588) apparatus-deformed crania have flatter frontals and occipitals and usually more angulated parietals in the sagittal plane than undeformed crania, regardless of deformation type. Fossil Australian samples exhibit evidence of both undeformed and deformed individuals. The sample from Coobool Creek provides evidence that undeformed individuals had more rounded frontals than recent Australians. However, many individuals from Coobool Creek, Kow Swamp, and Nacurrie exhibit modification of one or more cranial contours. The Kow Swamp individuals in particular plot with deformed crania from all regions. In addition, the frequency of hyperostotic traits such as bregmatic eminence, metopic and sagittal keels in H. sapiens is influenced by both artificial deformation and pathological hypervascularity/hyperostosis. Thus it is unwise to use cranial contours and these nonmetric traits to infer genetic relatedness between Fossil Australians and Indonesian H. erectus.     

Altruistic interference shown by the alpha-female of a captive troop of rhesus monkeys

Interferences in aggressive disputes were recorded in a captive troop of rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) comprising 19 mature females, 2 mature males and 12 immatures. The top ranking animal - the oldest female, Alpha, 23 years of age - was the only one who consistently interfered in favor of victims, never of aggressors. This protective, dispute-breaking strategy was distinguished by the following facts: None of the supported monkeys shared genes with Alpha; Alpha had no preference for aiding particular individuals; Alpha's high-risk interference (against aggressors) was never reciprocated; and (4) there was no evidence that Alpha's strategy aimed at the improvement of dominance standing. It was concluded that Alpha's behavior may represent an example of altruism.     

Trophy heads from Nawinpukio, Perú: physical and chemical analysis of Huarpa-era modified human remains

Rescue excavations at the site of Nawinpukio in Perú's Ayacucho Valley exposed a cache of fragmented skulls dating to the Huarpa-era, about AD 400-700. Physical analysis of these remains revealed that they belonged to individuals of both sexes and a range of ages (MNI = 8), and that four crania had been modified through drilling, cutting, and scraping. The occipital and parietal bones of one cranium had been modified to form a shallow basin. Carbon stable isotope analysis of these remains revealed that five individuals had isotopic signatures consistent with maize consumption and one individual exhibited a carbon isotope value indicative of a C(3) plant based diet. Such a nonmaize diet distinguishes this individual from all other prehistoric humans analyzed from the Ayacucho Valley and is consistent with an origin a different ecozone of the valley. On the basis of their physical properties it is argued that these remains represent trophies obtained during raiding. Drawing on the formal properties of the specimens as well as ethnographic and archaeological analogies, it is suggested that the cranial basin served as a vessel for liquid.     

Possible relationship of cranial traumatic injuries with violence in the south‐east Iberian Peninsula from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age

The main aim of this study was to analyze the presence and distribution of cranial trauma, as possible evidence of violence, in remains from the Neolithic to Bronze Age from the SE Iberian Peninsula. The sample contains skulls, crania, and cranial vaults belonging to 410 prehistoric individuals. We also studied 267 crania from medieval and modern times for comparative purposes. All lesions in the prehistoric crania are healed and none of them can be attributed to a specific weapon. In all studied populations, injuries were more frequent in adults than in subadults and also in males than in females, denoting a sexual division in the risk of suffering accidents or intentional violence. According to the archeological record, the development of societies in the SE Iberian Peninsula during these periods must have entailed an increase in conflict. However, a high frequency of cranial traumatic injuries was observed in the Neolithic series, theoretically a less conflictive time, and the lowest frequency was in crania from the 3rd millennium B.C. (Copper Age), which is characterized by the archeologists as a period of increasing violence. The relatively large size and the high rate of injuries in Neolithic crania and the practice of cannibalism are strongly suggestive of episodes of interpersonal or intergroup conflict. The number and distribution of injuries in Bronze Age is consistent with the increase in violence at that time described by most archeologists. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Artificial cranial deformation in Pleistocene Australians: the Coobool Creek sample

Several authors have suggested that some Pleistocene Australian crania have been altered by artificial cranial deformation. The large sample from Coobool Creek has featured prominently in this debate. The present study reevaluates the evidence for artificial cranial deformation in this population using both a larger cranial sample and a more comprehensive set of measurements than those used in earlier work on this subject. Additionally, random expectation statistics are used to calculate statistical significance for these examinations. The results of this study agree with prior work indicating that a portion of this sample shows evidence for artificial deformation of the cranial vault. Many Coobool Creek crania display strong shape similarities with a population of known deformed individuals from New Britain. Coobool Creek crania 1, 41, 65, and 66 show the strongest evidence for deformation, but several other individuals from this sample also show clear evidence for culturally manipulated changes in cranial shape. This project provides added support for the argument that at least some Pleistocene Australian groups were practicing artificial cranial deformation.     

Biomechanical correlates of symptomatic and asymptomatic neurophysiological impairment in high school football

Concussion is a growing public health issue in the United States, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is the chief long-term concern linked to repeated concussions. Recently, attention has shifted toward subconcussive blows and the role they may play in the development of CTE. We recruited a cohort of high school football players for two seasons of observation. Acceleration sensors were placed in the helmets, and all contact activity was monitored. Pre-season computer-based neuropsychological tests and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) tests were also obtained in order to assess cognitive and neurophysiological health. In-season follow-up scans were then obtained both from individuals who had sustained a clinically-diagnosed concussion and those who had not. These changes were then related through stepwise regression to history of blows recorded throughout the football season up to the date of the scan. In addition to those subjects who had sustained a concussion, a substantial portion of our cohort who did not sustain concussions showed significant neurophysiological changes. Stepwise regression indicated significant relationships between the number of blows sustained by a subject and the ensuing neurophysiological change. Our findings reinforce the hypothesis that the effects of repetitive blows to the head are cumulative and that repeated exposure to subconcussive blows is connected to pathologically altered neurophysiology.     

Malignant catarrhal fever in free-ranging cervids associated with OvHV-2 and CpHV-2 DNA

Pathologic lesions were summarized in 18 free-ranging cervids (15 moose [Alces alces], two roe deer [Capreolus capreolus], and one red deer [Cervus elaphus]) diagnosed with malignant catarrhal fever (MCF) after examination at the National Veterinary Institute, Oslo 1982-2005. Eye lesions (conjunctivitis, corneal opacity, fibrin clots in the anterior eye chamber) were the most frequent gross finding. Erosive-ulcerative mucosal lesions in the nose and mouth were also commonly found. Histopathology revealed a nonpurulent vasculitis and perivasculitis in the central nervous system (CNS) typical of MCF in 16 of the cases. The diagnosis in the remaining two animals was based upon histologic eye lesions consistent with MCF (CNS not available for examination). Polymerase chain reaction was run on samples from 15 individuals for evidence of MCF-virus DNA, and ovine herpesvirus-2 (OvHV-2) DNA was detected in five moose, one roe deer, and one red deer, and caprine herpesvirus-2 (CpHV-2) DNA was detected in two moose and one roe deer. Sera from 1,000 free-ranging cervids were tested for specific antibodies to MCF-associated viruses (MCFV) by competitive inhibition enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The seroprevalences were: red deer 5%, reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) 4%, roe deer 2%, and moose 0.4% (n = 250 for all four species). The results indicate that sheep and goat MCFV may cause serious disease in wild moose, roe deer, and red deer. The seropositive cervids most likely represent individuals infected with either OvHV-2 or CpHV-2, but may also reflect infections with other related MCFV.     

Association of morphological and RFLP markers in rice (Oryza sativa L.).

Seventeen morphological marker genes were associated with restriction fragment length polymorphism markers in rice by using four F2 populations, each segregating for a few observable traits, and 14 near isogenic lines (NILs), each containing one morphological mutant gene. The location of five genes was confirmed on the basis of F2 analysis: Purple hull (Pr) (16.8 +/- 7.9 cM away from RG163 on chromosome 4); Phenol staining (Ph) (20.8 +/- 8.4 cM away from RG163 on chromosome 4); glabrous leaf and hull (gl-1) (14.3 +/- 7.4 cM away from RG182, and 20.9 +/- 8.3 cM from RG403 on chromosome 5); Brown pericarp (Rc) (12.5 +/- 7.2 cM away from RG30 on chromosome 7); and lazy growth habit (la) (28.8 +/- 9.4 cM away from RG118 on chromosome 11). In addition, 12 other morphological markers, including the agronomically important genes semi-dwarf (sd-1) and Pollen restoring factor (Rf-1) were tentatively associated with mapped DNA clones based on screening pairs of NILs.     

An assessment of sex using the skull of black South Africans by discriminant function analysis

The derivation of discriminant function equations for skeletal elements of South African populations continues to be an area of interest to both forensic anthropologists and skeletal biologists alike. The skull of black South Africans has previously been subjected to discriminant function analysis, using four measurements and two indices; however, no equations were derived to address the issue of sex determination. Recently Franklin, Freedman and Milne [2005. Sexual dimorphism and discriminant function sexing in indigenous South African crania. HOMO J. Comp. Hum. Biol. 55, 213-228] used the crania of black South Africans, in a three-dimensional approach, with eight linear measurements to investigate sex determination. This study, although valuable, requires the use of highly technical and expensive morphometric equipment that renders it less feasible in South Africa. In response to this, our study uses traditional anthropometric measurements and equipment to address the question of sex determination from the crania and mandible of blacks. One hundred and twenty non-pathological skulls were randomly selected from the Raymond Dart Collection of Human Skeletons, equally distributed by sex and belonging to individuals whose age at death ranges between 25 and 70 years. Fourteen cranial and six mandibular measurements were subjected to discriminant function analyses and discriminant function equations were derived for sex determination. Average accuracies ranged between 80% and 85% and were on par with that obtained in previous studies. Our study shows that traditional methods provide average accuracies that are comparable to those obtained using more complex techniques.     

Mode of death and post-mortem time effects on 3,3',5-triiodothyronine levels--relevance to elevated post-mortem T3 levels in SIDS

Post-mortem T3 levels have been reported to be increased in victims of SIDS. Recent animal studies suggest, however, that elevated T3 in SIDS may be a non-specific post-mortem phenomenon. Therefore, we studied the possible effects of post-mortem time on T3 levels in 10- and 20-day-old rats killed by various methods including: Sodium pentobarbital overdose, injection of KCl, cervical dislocation or asphyxia with 100% N, 95% N-5% CO2 or 100% CO2. In both age groups T3 remained unchanged or increased slightly when the animals were killed with Na Pentobarbital or KCl. Greater increases were observed when rats were killed by cervical dislocation or asphyxia (100% N, 95% N-5% CO2 or 100% CO2). T3 levels did not become elevated in asphyxiated adult rats in which the inferior vena cava was ligated immediately following death. By extension to the human infant, the results of this study support the possibility that elevated T3 levels in SIDS victims may result from post-mortem processes. However, these results also suggest that the post-mortem elevation in T3 levels may be directly related to the mode of death.