health and disease (Other Keyword)
1-3 (3 Records)
The most frequent pathologies found throughout the circum-Caribbean before arrival of the Europeans are dental and periodontal diseases. To date, ancient oral health has been studied using a variety of techniques, and recently ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis of dental calculus (calcified plaque) has shown great promise in revealing not only (oral) health and disease, but also diet and the composition of the oral microbiome over archaeological timescales. In this paper, we present ancient metagenomic...
Oral Metagenomes from Native American Ancestors Reveal Distinct Microbial Lineages in the Precontact Era (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Disruption of the microbial community in the oral cavity, by diet, host genetics, or environmental factors, can lead to dysbiosis, promoting preferential growth of pathogenic microorganisms leading to a diseased state. The calcified matrix of dental calculus is a good source for ancient biomolecules belonging to bacterial species, allowing researchers to...
Precolumbian Tuberculosis in the Chachapoya from the Northeastern Peruvian Andes (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The application of molecular methods to paleopathology has revealed a strain of tuberculosis (TB) closely related to a variety currently adapted to seals and sea lions that caused human infection in the western Andes of prehispanic South America. Our understanding of ancient TB distribution in terms of geography and genetic diversity is, however, limited since...