Nutritional and Infectious Diseases in the Bronze and Iron Ages of Mongolia: The Archaeological Significance

Summary

This is an abstract from the "New Directions in Mongolian Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The identification of nutritional and infectious diseases in human skeletal assemblages has value for both bioarchaeologists and archaeologists for assessing the impact of particular biosocial and environmental contexts on health. This paper presents skeletal evidence of the nutritional diseases rickets, osteomalacia, and scurvy, and infectious diseases including possible brucellosis, tuberculosis, echinococcosis, and treponematosis in Bronze [~2500–400 BCE] (n = 92) and Iron Age (Xiongnu) [200 BCE–100 CE] (n = 68) human skeletal assemblages from Mongolia. The presence of these diseases in these contexts indicate considerable social change between the Bronze Age and Xiongnu, affecting the health of these populations. High rates of rickets and osteomalacia were found in both assemblages, whereas an increased presence of scurvy was identified in the Xiongnu. There is little increase in the prevalence of infectious diseases between the Bronze Age and the Xiongnu (3.3% vs. 5.9%). However, the diversity of different diseases increases from the Bronze Age to the Xiongnu, which may reflect the impacts of increasing migration and trade introducing new diseases. The presence of zoonotic infectious diseases in both assemblages highlight the intimate relationship between pastoralists and their herds from the Bronze Age onward, supporting the idea of intensifying pastoralism at this time.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• New Directions in Mongolian Archaeology

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32374