Searching for Biomarkers in Dental Calculus in the Arch Street Project Skeletal Remains

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Bones and Burials in Philadelphia: The Arch Street Project’s Multidisciplinary Research" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The human remains from the Arch Street assemblage offer a unique opportunity to use nondestructive sampling techniques to study the population from the later 18th to early 19th century of Philadelphia. Many of the human remains contain at least partial dentition with calculus deposits present. The calculus is sampled and pathogenic biomarkers identified. Pathologies that are typically retained for a longer during illness such as tuberculosis and syphilis may have manifested in the calculus deposits. These results can help provide us with an idea of the overall health of the population of the cemetery during its active span (ca. 1702-1859) and perhaps provide insights into the rise and fall of certain pathologies as America approached the industrial revolution. This paper presents procedural methods of sampling as well as preliminary results from the analysis.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Bones and Burials in Philadelphia: The Arch Street Project’s Multidisciplinary Research   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 26083