Abstract
Archaeological Studies of Disease Introduction, The archaeologist has always to press into his services the methods of other sciences, and Dr. John H. Provinse, assistant professor of archaeology at the University of Arizona, according to a communication issued by Science Service of Washington, D.C., is utilising recent botanical studies in an interesting manner to check data upon the occurrence of disease among American Indians in prehistoric times. Dr. A. E. Douglass, astronomer of the University of Arizona, has developed very thoroughly the use of annual rings to determine dates over a period running back through many centuries, the western American climate having led to the formation, over wide regions, of growth rings that appear well correlated with varying climatic conditions. Dr. Provinse now attempts to match the growth rings in fragments of woods buried with diseased Indians with this well-established ‘tree-ring calendar’. The tree-ring calendar has enabled the age to be determined of many pueblos and cliff dwellings, and Dr. Provinse now hopes to determine how far back various diseases that affect the skeleton can be traced. Among the diseases diagnosed in these early Indians are Pott's disease; rickets; osteomalacia, a nutrition disorder of adult women resembling rickets; arthritis and Paget's disease. The origin of syphilis is in the minds of the workers, but its diagnosis on pathological bone characters appears uncertain. It is stated that so far there is no proof that it existed in America before the coming of Europeans.
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Research Items. Nature 135, 588–590 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135588a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135588a0