Assessing cancer risk factors faced by an Ancestral Puebloan population in the North American Southwest

Malignancy in three medieval Polish osteological collections

“…Natural sources of radiation can also be carcinogenic to humans and would also likely have been present in the Middle Ages. A recent investigation assessed the potential risk of ancient naturally occurring ionizing radiation after observing malignancy in pre-Columbian burials from Ancestral Puebloan communities in New Mexico, dated 1050-1320 CE (Whitley and Boyer 2018). Radon, a Class 1 carcinogen, was selected as the source of naturally occurring, non-ionizing radiation to be tested due to the high levels present in the region (IARC 2012c).…”

“…Since radon is found in the soil and concentrates in modern basements and small rooms with little to no ventilation, it was suspected the earthen pit structures of the Ancestral Puebloans would be at higher risk than typical ground level dwellings. Short-term and long-term radon-detector kits were placed in a previously excavated pit structure and the results showed high concentrations of radon that possibly impacted the risk of neoplasms in the Ancestral Puebloans (Whitley and Boyer 2018). In Poland, the modern average annual effective dose of radiation from natural sources is 2.48 millisieverts (mSv), half of which is from radon (Fornalski and Dobrzyński 2012); the recommended yearly dose is 1mSv as per the International Commission on Radiological Protection (Ojovan et al 2019).…”