Porosities in the outer table of the cranial vault (porotic hyperostosis) and orbital roof (cribra orbitalia) are among the most frequent pathological lesions seen in ancient human skeletal collections. Since the 1950s, chronic iron-deficiency anemia has been widely accepted as the probable cause of both conditions. Based on this proposed etiology, bioarchaeologists use the prevalence of these conditions to infer living conditions conducive to dietary iron deficiency, iron malabsorption, and iron loss from both diarrheal disease and intestinal parasites in earlier human populations. This iron-deficiency-anemia hypothesis is inconsistent with recent hematological research that shows iron deficiency per se cannot sustain the massive red blood cell production that causes the marrow expansion responsible for these lesions. Several lines of evidence suggest that the accelerated loss and compensatory over-production of red blood cells seen in hemolytic and megaloblastic anemias is the most likely proximate cause of porotic hyperostosis. Although cranial vault and orbital roof porosities are sometimes conflated under the term porotic hyperostosis, paleopathological and clinical evidence suggests they often have different etiologies. Reconsidering the etiology of these skeletal conditions has important implications for current interpretations of malnutrition and infectious disease in earlier human populations.

The causes of porotic hyperostosis and cribra orbitalia: a reappraisal of the iron-deficiency-anemia hypothesis.

I propose a new scenario for the discovery of America. By analogy with other successful animal invasions, one may assume that the discovery of the New World triggered a human population explosion. The invading hunters attained their highest population density along a front that swept from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico in 350 years, and on to the tip of South America in roughly 1000 years. A sharp drop in human population soon followed as major prey animals declined to extinction. Possible values for the model include an average frontal depth of 160 kilometers, an average population density of 0.4 person per square kilometer on the front and of 0.04 person per square kilometer behind the front, and an average rate of frontal advance of 16 kilometers per year. For the first two centuries the maximum rate of growth may have equaled the historic maximum of 3.4 percent annually. During the episode of faunal extinctions, the population of North America need not have exceeded 600,000 people at any one time. The model generates a population sufficiently large to overkill a biomass of Pleistocene large animals averaging 9 metric tons per square kilometer (50 animal units per section) or 2.3 x 108 metric tons in the hemisphere. It requires that on the front one person in four destroy one animal unit (450 kilograms) per week, or 26 percent of the biomass of an average section in 1 year in any one region. Extinction would occur within a decade. There was insufficient time for the fauna to learn defensive behaviors, or for more than a few kill sites to be buried and preserved for the archeologist. Should the model survive future findings, it will mean that the extinction chronology of the Pleistocene megafauna can be used to map the spread of Homo sapiens throughout the New World.

/pdf/the-discovery-of-america-the-first-americans-may-have-swept-20sznvgrh0.pdf

The Discovery of America The first Americans may have swept the Western Hemisphere and decimated its fauna within 1000 years

Almost all known human specific parasites have been found in ancient feces. A review of the paleoparasitological helminth and intestinal protozoa findings available in the literature is presented. We also report the new paleoparasitologic findings from the examination performed in samples collected in New and Old World archaeological sites. New finds of ancylostomid, Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura, Enterobius vermicularis, Trichostrongylus spp., Diphyllobothrium latum, Hymenolepis nana and Acantocephalan eggs are reported. According to the findings, it is probable that A. lumbricoides was originally a human parasite. Human ancylostomids, A. lumbricoides and T. trichiura, found in the New World in pre-Columbian times, have not been introduced into the Americas by land via Beringia. These parasites could not supported the cold climate of the region. Nomadic prehistoric humans that have crossed the Bering Land Bridge from Asia to the Americas in the last glaciation, probably during generations, would have lost these parasites, which life cycles need warm temperatures in the soil to be transmitted from host to host. Alternative routes are discussed for human parasite introduction into the Americas.

https://www.arca.fiocruz.br/bitstream/icict/24719/2/HumanIntestinal.pdf

Human intestinal parasites in the past: new findings and a review

INFECTIOUS DISEASES RESULT from the interplay of three main factors: the host, the parasite, and the environment. The matter is highly complex, since each of these factors can vary in many ways and many differing diseases can result. In this review, attention will be concentrated on two of these factors: the prehuman and human hosts and their environments during the periods of man's evolution from the earliest days to the present. A number of distinct eras can be discerned: those of the primate precursors of man, early man, agricultural man, industrial man, and the man of one world. The first three of these eras will be discussed here.

Infectious diseases in ancient populations.

/pdf/coprolite-analysis-a-biological-perspective-on-archaeology-afar758jkn.pdf

Coprolite Analysis: A Biological Perspective on Archaeology

Eggs of Enterobius vermicularis (human pinworm) were found in hum coprolites from Hopug and Danger Caves, western Utah. The Caves were inhabitated by man from 10,000 B.C. to A.D. 1400. The oldest coprolite containing dated at 7837 B.C. This represents the earliest known association between man abd this exclusively human parasite.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/166/3913/1620.full.pdf

Enterobius vermicularis: 10,000-year-old human infection.

Examination of ova and parasites from coprolites of probable human origin revealed eggs of the phylum Acanthocephala. Specimens were gathered from Danger Cave in Utah, an area heavily populatd with definitive rodent hosts for the Acanthocephala species Moniliformis clarki. It is postulated that prehistoric man developed Acanthocephala infection by ingesting the arthropod intermediate host, or that he was a victim of false parasitism by ingesting the whole rodent.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/163/3873/1324.full.pdf

Gary F. Fry

Papers

Enterobius vermicularis: 10,000-year-old human infection.

Thomy-Headed Worm Infection in North American Prehistoric Man