A probable example of cranial dysraphism from New Orleans, Louisiana

Abstract

Cranial dysraphism, a pathological condition resulting from a neural tube defect, is a rarely reported condition in archaeological and clinical literature. A defect at bregma was identified on human remains recovered from New Orleans, Louisiana, when exhumation of several commingled bodies occurred in a paupers' cemetery in 2015. Initial speculation regarding the cause of the condition consisted of trauma, pathological condition, a natural variant, or the result of a congenital defect. A differential diagnosis was utilised to approach the breadth of potential causative factors, incorporating clinical information on the bony response of soft tissue defects common in modern reports. However, during a review of the bioarchaeological literature, an alternative explanation for the feature, one that did not result from typically reported causes, revealed that this observed defect was likely an example of the rarely reported condition known as cranial dysraphism. Through review of both clinical and bioarchaeological data, the resulting diagnosis observed here is supported through the unique characteristics that several other authors have identified as associated with cranial dysraphism. Unique features of this bony defect include the smooth walls of the depression, a saucer‐like shape with an anterior rim built up of cortical bone, lack of diploë exposure, a perforation at the base of the saucer, and the retention of cranial sutures. Although the defect also closely resembles the bony response to a cyst, the perforation and anterior rim are supportive of its diagnosis as a cranial dysraphism. This case study of a single occurrence of cranial dysraphism is reported to assist practitioners in differentiating between this condition and other potential causes of anomalies of similar appearance.

Catholic-Confucian Mortuary Practices in a Rural Manchurian Cemetery

“…In life, it would appear as a bump on the head, covered in skin and hair along with the rest of the cranial vault. This case is the 9th or 10th case of cranial dysraphism reported in the published archaeological record from anywhere in the world (Halling and Seidemann 2018). Encephaloceles are typically fatal in infancy, and meningoceles, if uncorrected, can also be fatal; they can develop from maternal folic-acid deficiency, though there is not a known cause in every case (Barnes 2008).…”

Paleopathology of Commingled Remains: A Case Study from the Prehispanic Highlands of Peru

“…As mentioned above, the majority of the articles found in this literature review were published between 2016 and 2022. These consist of paleopathological case studies of a single anomaly of interest (e.g., Halling and Seidemann 2018;Kieffer 2015;L'Engle Williams and Polet 2017;Palamenghi et al 2020;Schrenk et al 2016;Titelbaum, Ibarra, and McNeil 2019); explorations of a type of pathological condition or lesion within an assemblage or across populations, such as metabolic diseases (e.g., Ellis 2016;Paladin, Wahl, and Zink 2018;Perry and Edwards 2021;Thompson et al 2021) or degenerative joint diseases (e.g., Austin 2017;Yustos et al 2021), bioarchaeological and paleopathological population-level analyses and comparisons (e.g., Abegg et al 2021;Gregoricka 2016;Geber et al 2017;Figus et al 2017;Munoz 2017;Lowman Sharratt, and Turner 2019) or studies developing, testing, and refining methodologies including MNI calculations and taphonomy (e.g., Lambacher et al 2016;Palmiotto, Brown, and LeGarde 2019;Mack et al 2016;Moutafi and Voutsaki 2016;Schmitt and Bizot 2016;Vaduveskovic and Djuvic 2020), bone sorting and match-pairing (e.g., Bertsatos and Choralopoulou 2019;Santos and Villotte 2019), age-at-death or sex estimations (Anzellini and Toyne 2019;Beck and Smith 2019;Brickley, Dragomir, and Lockau 2016), and relational databases (Abegg et al 2021;Laforest 2016;Osterholtz 2019). This data, though far from exhaustive, demonstrates that there was a stark increase in interest in the study of commingled human remains in the last decade, particularly from 2015 and on.…”