Summary
Studies of disease in ancient times add an important dimension to our understanding of the life struggles of a largely unknown past. Information about the health status of the earliest inhabitants of North America provides a chronology of health problems that spans more than a thousand years. Analysis of past health begins with understanding the environmental context within which people lived.
The environment greatly influences how successful groups are at procuring food. If groups are to thrive, they must adapt to climate, excess heat or cold, high altitude, parasites, and predators. Understanding the cultural patterns helps us to understand which cultural customs buffered against poor health and which customs may have promoted disease.
The most frequent causes of infectious diseases in prehistory have been estimated to be staphylococcus and streptococcus. Diagnosis and identification of the cause of the infection are difficult, and paleopathologists have now advocated using general descriptive categories for classifying the skeletal changes observed.
In general, early Native Americans appeared to sustain osteoarthritis at rates comparable with individuals today. The prevalence of both infectious lesions and degenerative joint disease increased with age. Women demonstrated greater frequencies of disease in the shoulder and elbows than did age-matched men.
Iron deficiency anemia was widespread in native North Americans. The most frequent causes of infectious diseases were staphylococcus and streptococcus. Archaeological remains show that native groups were not living in a pristine, disease-free environment. Study of ancestral menus may provide clues to the health of today's Native Americans.
- Virgin soil epidemics as a factor in the aboriginal depopulation in America. William Mary Q 1976;33: 289-299. Neel JV. Health and disease in unacculturated Amerindian populations. Ciba Found Symp 1997;49(ns): 155-177.
