No abstract

Currently, research focus in palaeo‐oncology is dominated by malignant neoplasms, and this focus has led to an academic apathy towards benign tumours. The lack of interest in benign tumours is mainly due to the notion that they are commonplace occurrences with little clinical value. As a result, knowledge and understanding of benign tumours are lacking, and this has become a hindrance to the overall understanding of neoplastic disease in bioarchaeological contexts. It is the goal of this commentary to highlight the relevance of benign tumours and to encourage future research in this neglected area of palaeo‐oncology.

The osteoma, among other forms of benign neoplastic disease, has received little palaeopathological or palaeoepidemiological interest largely because of its asymptomatic nature. This is problematic because these tumours are regarded as common occurrences in bioarchaeological contexts, despite there being scant data to support these claims. This investigation presents a palaeoepidemiological enquiry into osteomata. Five hundred ninety individuals from six skeletal assemblages from Poland, dating from the 9th to 17th century, were macroscopically surveyed for osteomata. This was followed by a palaeoepidemiological analysis, looking at sex‐ and age‐specific prevalence. Ninety‐three osteomata were observed in 67 individuals. The sex‐specific prevalence was 13.5% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 9.7–18.1) for males and 11.6% (95% CI 7.9–16.2) for females. The age‐specific prevalence for middle adults was 2.1% (95% CI: 0.6–5.2) and 5.3% (95% CI: 2.5–9.8) for mature adults. The results indicated the prevalence of benign tumours was similar between males and females and seemed to increase with age. This case study adds to a sparse area of palaeo‐oncological research and calls for further future investigation.

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This case study describes and provides a differential diagnosis for a femoral lesion. Individual M81 was a young adult male from Milicz, a 12th–13th century cemetery, and a subsection of the osteological collection curated by the Polish Academy of Sciences in Wrocław, Poland. The skeleton underwent standard anthropological analysis to estimate age‐at‐death and sex. The lesion was then evaluated through macroscopic and radiographic analyses, using clinical and paleopathological criteria. The right femur presented with abnormal bone contouring at the proximal metaphysis. A radiograph revealed a round, osteolytic lesion with a thin sclerotic border, located parallel to the long axis of the bone. The radiographic appearance of the lesion, along with the individual's estimated age‐at‐death and sex, lend to a differential diagnosis of a simple bone cyst. In paleopathology, there have been scant reports of cystic lesions and fewer reports of simple bone cysts. This case adds further data to a clinically common, yet underreported, pathology and may be the first case of a simple bone cyst reported from a Polish context.

This report details an unusual case of a human sternal developmental abnormality of an anatomical specimen part of the skeletal collection curated by University College London, Anthropology Department skeletal collection. This rarely reported developmental abnormality is caused by the non-fusion of lateral ossification centres in the sternebrae, resulting in the mesosternum having a honeycomb-like appearance. Sternal defects are typically underreported in the clinical literature as many cases being asymptomatic that they are typically diagnosed incidentally, as such there is a dearth in our current understanding of the development and anatomical variants of the sternum. Although in recent years, large-scale CT studies have investigated the prevalence of sternal developmental abnormalities, these studies have not reported sternal defects similar to the individual presented in this report. While most sternal defects are clinically uneventful, the lack of awareness of these variants can result in misinterpretation of radiological and pathological findings as such an understanding of anatomical variants even when asymptomatic is vital.

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Establishing the palaeoepidemiology of diseases in children is a difficult task due to limited written and physical evidence. Historic admissions records from children’s hospitals can provide large data sets allowing insights into this area, rather than just case studies which are what most commonly appear within the palaeopathological literature. An oft ignored aspect of childhood illness is venereal disease due to the social taboo surrounding this topic. This study aimed to investigate the extent of syphilis within Victorian and Edwardian London’s children’s hospitals and explore the socioeconomic context this disease was occurring within. This was achieved by examining digitised hospital admissions data covering the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries for three children’s hospitals. These records revealed a significant spike in admissions for congenital syphilis following World War One. This was likely due to the return of troops from the warfront who had been infected whilst in mainland Europe. It was also found that the upper levels of the working classes accounted for the majority of the admissions, despite these institutions being created to aid the children from the lowest socioeconomic groups. Finally, this paper highlights the need for researchers to also consider the possibility of children having acquired syphilis rather than congenital syphilis when examining such records