Louse infestation of the Chiribaya culture,southern Peru: variation in prevalence by age and sex

In order to improve the interpretive potential of archaeoparasitology, it is important to demonstrate that the epidemiology of ancient parasites is comparable to that of modern parasites. Once this is demonstrated, then we can be secure that the evidence of ancient parasitism truly reflects the pathoecology of parasitic disease. Presented here is an analysis of the paleoepidemiology of Pediculus humanus infestation from 146 mummies from the Chiribaya culture 1000-1250 AD of Southern Peru. The study demonstrates the modern parasitological axiom that 10% of the population harbors 70% of the parasites holds true for ancient louse infestation. This is the first demonstration of the paleoepidemiology of prehistoric lice infestation.     

Artificial mummies from the Andes

In 1997 agricultural workers, turned into looters, found an intact funerary site in the cloud forest in northeastern Peru. A prompt archaeological rescue project permitted the recovery of an important collection of mummies and artifacts that are providing important insights about the archaeology of the Chachapoya people that established in this area around 900 AD up to the Inca conquest of this territory around the year 1475. The mummies recovered showed evidence of cultural practices devised and used to assure the preservation of the human bodies. Such practices are also reported for among Chinchorro and Chiribaya mummies in the Andes. A cultural interpretation of these funerary activities is discussed connecting the practice of the cult to the ancestors to the access and management of resources and territory.     

Evidence based palaeopathology: Meta-analysis of Pubmed-listed scientific studies on pre-Columbian,South American mummies

The aim of this study was to review all Pubmed^®-listed palaeopathological studies performed on pre-Columbian South American mummies. A total of 61 studies were found (1977–2005). Review criteria included e.g. method of examination, method of mummification, palaeopathological diagnoses and individual age of mummies as well as dating, which ranged from 7500 to 500 years BP, mainly (if reported) originating from the Chiribaya and Chinchorro cultures. The average age of the 99 individually reported mummies was about 25 years. Only six studies included computed tomography, thirteen studies used classical radiography as an examination method. Three studies analysed parasite related diseases, especially caused by Trypanosoma cruzi. Among all of the reported infectious diseases (n = 9), there were seven studies presenting cases of tuberculosis. The results were also compared inter-culturally. In 61 studies (37 epidemiological and 24 case reports) more than 6400 mummified individuals were analysed. By contrast, meta-analytic data for ancient Egyptian mummies ( Zweifel et al., 2009) included about 3000 analysed individuals in 131 studies (85 case reports and 46 epidemiological studies). In general, ancient Egyptian mummies were shown to be intentionally mummified, whereas the Pre-Columbian American mummies showed a great diversity of spontaneous mummification. However, ritualistic mummification methods were also practised (n = 2). This study's results shall assist to improve evidence-based research in palaeopathology.     

Archaeoparasitology in North America

The study of prehistoric parasitism through analysis of coprolites, mummies, skeletons, and latrine soils is rapidly growing. Its development in North America is interdisciplinary and is derived from the fields of physical anthropology, parasitology, and archaeology. The various parasite finds from North America are reviewed. The data show that prehistoric peoples in North America suffered from a variety of parasitic diseases. The validity of the findings are then considered. Although most finds of parasites from prehistoric contexts result from human infections, some finds cannot be verified as such. However, in combination with data from South America, it is clear that prehistoric peoples in the Americas were host to a variety of human parasites, some of which were not previously thought to be present before historic times.     

Techniques of DNA-studies on prehispanic ectoparasites (Pulex sp., Pulicidae,Siphonaptera) from Animal mummies of the Chiribaya culture,southern Peru

During a paleoparasitological survey of several animal mummies (Cavia aperea f. porcellus and Canis familiaris) from Chiribaya Baja, an archaeological site in Southern Peru, an unexpected find was made. In the well preserved fur, large numbers of mummified fleas (Pulex simulans/irritans) that parasitized the animals during life were encountered. Due to the relative recent event of the host mummification and the outstanding preservation of the fleas, an attempt for the retrieval of DNA was made. A DNA extraction and sequencing protocol for archaeological ectoparasitic remains has been established, taking additional studies for tissue and protein preservation into account. Tissue preservation was assessed with transmission electron microscopy and the protein preservation was tested through the racemisation ratios of aspartic acid. Regions of the 28S rDNA gene were successfully amplified and sequenced. Further research perspectives are outlined.     

Dental effects of diet and coca-leaf chewing on two prehistoric cultures of northern Chile

Two ancient cultures of northern Chile, the Chinchorro (9000-3500 BP) and the Maitas Chiribaya (850-700 BP) were examined for dental pathology in search of possible correlations between dental health, diet, and the cultural practice of coca-leaf chewing. The Chinchorro occupied the river mouth of the Azapa valley, subsisting almost exclusively on a maritime economy. The Maitas Chiribaya, descendants of migrant highlanders, had a rather well-developed agricultural subsistence base. The Chinchorro demonstrated extreme attrition rates and a correspondingly high frequency of periapical abscesses. They were essentially caries-free and enjoyed a moderate antemortem tooth loss frequency. The Maitas Chiribaya suffered light attrition, a high caries frequency, especially at the cementoenamel junction of crown and root, and a remarkably high antemortem tooth loss frequency. The cultural practice of coca-leaf chewing is implicated in the excessive posterior edentulism of the Maitas Chiribaya. © 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Histological examination of experimentally mummified tissues

Tissue mummified by desiccation can be examined histologically after rehydration with Ruffer's solution, and a number of natural mummies have been studied by this technique. In order to study the efficacy of the rehydration process, and to evaluate the degree of artefact introduced, normal human tissues were desiccated, rehydrated, and examined histologically. There was generally good preservation of architecture and moderate preservation of cellular detail, with some organ specific variability. The prospect of an atlas of mummified pathological lesions is discussed, as an aid to the determination of disease patterns in prehistoric populations.     

Species diversity patterns in some present and prehistoric rodent communities

Summary Comparisons of prehistoric (A.D. 1100–1400) and extant cricetine-dominated rodent faunas from two locations in New Mexico and one in Arizona reveal temporal changes in both species diversity and taxonomic composition. The archaeological context of the prehistoric faunas permitted them to be dated rather accurately; paleoenvironmental inferences generated from other materials recovered in the excavations such as pollen samples, agricultural remains, and tree-ring specimens provided evidence about prehistoric environmental conditions in the study areas. Both richness and evenness components of diversity are lower in the present day faunas than in their prehistoric counterparts. At the beta (between-habitat or valley-wide) level of diversity the increased prehistoric species richness as well as the nature of the differences in present and prehistoric taxonomic composition can be accounted for by small climatic shifts which were occurring between A.D. 1100 and 1300 in the Southwest and the resultant biogeogrphic responses of certain rodent species. Alpha (or within-habitat) diversity is similar for all analyzed faunas. This suggests basic similarities in very local species packing despite observed spatial and temporal variation in valley-wide diversities. Environmental changes stemming from climatic shifts provide a reasonable explanation of the observed patterns of rodent species occurrence and diversity. Habitat destruction resulting from agricultural practies of prehistoric human populations appears to have had only a limited impact on these rodent communities.     

Evolution of prehistoric lithic industries of the Philippines during the Pleistocene

During the past ten years, our knowledge of Paleolithic industries in the Philippines has grown thanks to new excavations and discoveries of stone implements, but also thanks to new studies on older collections. The study of knapped stones in the Philippines dates back to the 1920s. At this time, stone tools were used as type fossils to propose an initial chronology of prehistoric cultures. Later, taxonomies and functional analyses were used to assess lithic assemblages until the end of the 1990s. Current functional technology and traceological methods allow us to propose new hypotheses about prehistoric behavior during the Pleistocene, and also technological developments across the archipelago during the Paleolithic.     

Prehistoric tuberculosis in america: adding comments to a literature review

Tuberculosis is a prehistoric American human disease. This paper reviews the literature and discusses hypotheses for origins and epidemiological patterns of prehistoric tuberculosis. From the last decades, 24 papers about prehistoric tuberculosis were published and 133 cases were reviewed. In South America most are isolated case studies, contrary to North America where more skeletal series were analyzed. Disease was usually located at the deserts of Chile and Peru, Central Plains in USA, and Lake Ontario in Canada. Skeletal remains represent most of the cases, but 16 mummies have also been described. Thirty individuals had lung disease, 19 of them diagnosed by the ribs. More then 100 individuals had osseous tuberculosis and 26 also had it in other organs. As today, transmission of the infection and establishment of the disease were favored by cultural and life-style changes such as sedentarization, crowding, undernutrition, use of dark and insulated houses, and by the frequency of interpersonal contacts. The papers confirm that despite previous perceptions, tuberculosis seems to have occurred in America for millennia. It only had epidemiological expression when special conditions favored its expansion. Occurring as epidemic bursts or low endemic disease, it had differential impact on groups or social segments in America for at least two millennia.     

Chagas' disease in pre-Columbian South America

The quest for the origin and dispersion of Chagas' disease, the second most important vector-borne disease in Latin America, has epidemiological, immunological, and genetical implications. Conjectures based on accounts of chroniclers, reviews of the archaeological literature and the present distribution of triatomine bugs, the vectors of the disease, held that the origin of the adaptation of Triatoma infestans (aspecies of the subfamily Triatominae) to human dwellings occurred in prehistoric times. The autopsy of 35 mummies exhumed in the Chilean desert, dated between 470 B.C. and 600 A.D., revealed the presence of clinical manifestations of Chagas' disease and put earlier speculations on a factual basis.     

A Preliminary Report on Two Sites at Piney Creek,Wyoming 48J03Ll and 48J031

Abstract

During the summer of 1964, the University of Wyoming and the Wyoming Archaeological Society conducted exploratory excavations in two sites near Buffalo, Wyoming. Site 48J03ll consists of a number of stone circles and is apparently a camp site and site 48J0312 is a bison kill and butchering site. Artifact assemblages suggest an affiliation with late prehistoric and early historic sites in the Yellowstone River drainage.     

广东英德青塘遗址黄门岩2号洞地点2016年度的发掘

英德青塘遗址系岭南地区一组含晚更新世晚期至全新世初期堆积的洞穴遗址。2016年夏对其中的黄门岩2号洞地点进行首次正式发掘,该地点发现有连续多层的文化堆积,探方出土以及地表采集了大量砾石制品、种类丰富的动物遗存、以及若干件早期陶片,部分胶结地层堆积中可见包含了大量螺蚌壳。文化遗存中的砾石石器多选用河滩砾石,使用硬锤在砾石的一端或一侧单面陡刃加工的技术特点突出,有望为探讨中国岭南地区与东南亚大陆地区晚更新世晚期至全新世初期的砾石石器工业之联系提供新证据。     

Tradition and Diversity among the Prehistoric Hunters and Gatherers of Southern Texas

Abstract

Archaeological and ethnohistorical research has been greatly accelerated in southern Texas in the past five years. A new body of data obtained through extensive surveys, major excavations and intensified archival studies make possible a more detailed view of the area’s 11 ,000-year record of hunting and gathering lifeways. We can begin to replace the model of a widespread, homogenous prehistoric cultural pattern (and the early historic “Coahuiltecan” stereotype) with’ a more realistic perspective which documents regional and temporal variations. While a hunting and gathering subsistence tradition dominated the development of prehistoric lifeways, there is now substantial evidence of intraregional cultural diversity. Such diversity was the result of both spatially-and temporally-localized resources within the area, arid perhaps of shifting spheres of extra-areal cultural influences. New geomorphological, climatic, and chronometric data also permit us to examine certain aspects of both tradition and diversity within a suitable chronological framework.     

Status and Role in Archaeology:

Abstract

Three categories of individuals currently interested in the recovery of prehistoric archaeological material on the Plains as well as in the United States generally, may be distinguished: the professional archaeologist, the amateur, and the pot-hunter, or vandal. Each of these types is placed in perspective in relation to the others and to the field of prehistoric archaeology, with special emphasis on the status and roles of different types of pot-hunters.

The amateur is aligned with the professional, especially in terms of objectives and approach, while each is differentiated in status and role from the existing variety of pot-hunters. The position is developed that pot-hunters decidedly do not comprise a homogeneous grouping, there being within their numbers at least 3 subtypes, each manifesting important differences.

Federal and state antiquities legislation is viewed as inadequate, by itself, to check the destruction of prehistoric sites, objects, and related material. Such laws must be coordinated, not only with the effort of the professional and the amateur in undertaking controlled excavations, but also with the equally important task of demonstrating to unwitting pot-hunters the implications of their destructive activity in contrast to the positive contributions of the scientific approach to antiquities.     

Traces of a possible Celtic brewery in Eberdingen-Hochdorf, Kreis Ludwigsburg, southwest Germany

A large number of weakly germinated hulled barley grains was found during archaeobotanical analyses from the early Celtic settlement excavations at Eberdingen-Hochdorf in southwest Germany (ca. 600 – 400 BC). These grains seem to represent deliberate germination, due to the purity of the find and its unusual archaeological context. The possibility of deliberate malting which could be connected with beer brewing is discussed. Recent germination and charring experiments show that the consistently weak traces of germination on the charred subfossil grains from Hochdorf are enough to indicate malted grains. A comparison of the archaeobotanical remains with the written and archaeological sources shows that evidence of beer brewing from excavations is very scarce. There is practically no clear proof of brewing, while written sources and indirect suggestions are abundant. Neither archaeological finds nor either written or iconographic sources give exact details about the prehistoric brewing technology of the early Celts. The archaeological finds from Hochdorf seem to be the result of deliberate malting of hulled barley for the purpose of Celtic beer brewing.     

Henderson Island prehistory: colonization and extinction on a remote Polynesian island

Situated at the extreme margin of the Indo-West Pacific biotic province, the four islands of the isolated Pitcairn Group hold interest for biogeographers and archaeologists alike. Human settlement may have been as early as the 8th century AD for the uplifted limestone island of Henderson, the most pristine island of its kind. An archaeological survey of the Pitcairn Islands is provided, while Henderson is examined in detail. Recent extensive excavations provide a record of change during 600 years of human occupation. Adaptation to the ecologically-marginal conditions is documented by artefacts, more than 150000 vertebrate bones, molluscs and subfossil plant remains recovered from stratigraphic contexts. The effects of prehistoric human occupation on the pristine environment are revealed by Polynesian plant and animal introductions, bird extinctions and range reductions, possible over-predation of marine molluscs, exploitation of sea turtles, and large-scale burning for swidden agriculture. The origin of human colonists is documented by analysing imported artefacts by geochemical characterization (x-ray fluorescence analysis). The human abandonment of Henderson, by the seventeenth century, is viewed in the context of prehistoric regional dynamics.     

Sclerotia of Typhula ishikariensis biotype B (Typhulaceae) from archaeological sites (4000 to 400 BP) in Hokkaido, northern Japan

Despite their close association with human activities, plant pathogenic fungi have rarely been found in archaeological excavations. We report here that a fungus was closely associated with human activities even in prehistoric times. Sclerotium-like objects were found at historical sites (4000 to 400 BP) on the island of Hokkaido, northern Japan. They were spherical, 0.3-1.0 mm in diameter, and had a medulla and rind. Some had leaf fragments on the surface or a protuberance that resembled emerging sporocarp primordia. These traits indicated that they were sclerotia of the snow mold fungus, Typhula ishikariensis biotype B.     

Protracted emergence of overwintering Amyelois transitella (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) from pistachios and almonds in California

The navel orangeworm, Amyelois transitella (Walker), is the primary insect pest of pistachios and almonds in California. Four years of research (2002-2006) were conducted in Madera and Kern Counties to elucidate the pattern of adult emergence of the overwintering navel orangeworm population. Springtime emergence from unharvested (mummy) nuts was protracted (600 degree-days or more from 1 January of each year) and in 2004 and 2006 extended to mid-July. The population structure, sex ratio, and timing of emergence differed between pistachio and almond mummies. Pistachio populations had a significantly greater proportion of late stage individuals compared with almond mummies, 85.7 versus 34.1%. The sex ratio of adults emerging from pistachio mummies was significantly skewed with a ratio 57:43 male:female compared with 50:50 in almond mummies. Emergence from mummies held outdoors (variable temperature) began in early March and continued through early June in both pistachio mummies and almond mummies. The adult emergence pattern from pistachio mummies contained a single emergence peak, whereas emergence from almond mummies occurred in multiple peaks. These same patterns occurred when mummies were held at constant temperature, and the emergence peak from pistachio mummies occurred sooner. The impact of these findings on understanding navel orangeworm population dynamics and current control recommendations is discussed.     

Trace elements in ancient Peruvian mummy hair: A preliminary report

Hair samples of 46 prehistoric mummies from five different pre-Inca sites in Peru were analyzed for Ca, Sr, Ni, Mn, and Ba by DCP/AES. The five sites displayed differing burial customs: whereas the dead of Cahuachi (n=13), Huayuri (n=2) and Brujo (n=5) had been interred unwrapped in simple stone pits, the mummies of Las Trancas (n=17) and Pacatnamu (n=9) had been granted protection by fabrics and wooden coffins. At the sites with no protection, the hair samples contained extremely high concentrations of Ca and Sr which by far exceeded the usual physiological ranges. This can probably be explained by contamination from the surrounding soil. In contrast, the protected depositions of Las Trancas and Pacatnamu exhibited Ca and Sr concentrations within the present range of variation. This may indicate that favourable conditions had prevented contamination in these cases. For Mn the same trend can be observed, both Cahuachi and Huayuri samples showed markedly increased values. For Ni and Ba on the other hand no correlation with the type of interment was found. In the two non-contaminated series, the mean values of Mn, Ba, and Ni were considerably higher in Las Trancas than in Pacatnamu. As Mn, Ni, and Ba tend to occur in higher concentrations in vegetable than in animal food items, these differences may indicate a differential availability of animal protein at the two locations