More than the sum of their parts: reconstituting the paleopathological profile of the individual and commingled Neolithic populations of Western Switzerland

Abstract

This research focuses on the Neolithic populations of Western Switzerland (5500–2200 BCE) and on establishing their paleopathological profile. This chronological period presents varying burial practices, and the aim was to be able to synthesise all information regarding the pathologies these populations exhibited, in such a way that statistical tests could be performed to determine whether geographical (site location), biological (age, sex, stature) and chronological factors played a role in lesion distribution. As a result, a methodology was devised to consider bone lesions in both a quantified and qualified manner, and able to handle individualised, multiple and commingled remains. The statistical analysis showed that pathological profiles differed depending on site location, with some exhibiting patterns that raise further questions as to the socio-economical functioning of these prehistoric societies. Biological factors also appear to play a role in lesion distribution, with immature individuals exhibiting more metabolic deregulations, whilst the adults—as expected—showed more signs of degenerative pathologies. Some chronological evolution of health is also perceivable; however, the small sample size available for some periods means these results are tentative at best. These remains, however, proved more than an accumulation of bone lesions, and the qualified data collected from them also yielded individual and collective narratives of health. Instances of infectious diseases were discovered, indicating that pathologies such as tuberculosis were a persistent presence at the time, with all the consequences this entails.

The landscape of ancient human pathogens in Eurasia from the Stone Age to historical times

“…However, direct evidence for such a transition remains scarce 12 . Paleopathological examinations of ancient skeletons have provided some insights into past infectious disease burden 13 , but are limited to the small number of infections that leave detectable marks on bone tissue. More recently, advances in ancient DNA techniques have provided the means to retrieve direct genomic evidence of past microbial infections, even in the absence of visible disease pathologies, and in some cases allows for the reconstruction of complete ancient pathogen genomes.…”

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.…”

“…Even though such methodologies may not be currently applicable to highly commingled or fragmentary remains, these contexts have recently been the focus of an increasing amount of scholarship dedicated to developing or refining methods for estimating age-at-death and sex, calculating the minimum number of individuals (MNI) or for interpretating taphonomy and state of preservation as was discussed in the previous section. In addition, scholars have recently worked towards creating relational databases specific for commingled and fragmentary remains that can help manage these complex and extensive assemblages (see Abegg et al 2021;Laforest 2016;Osterholtz 2019). As mentioned above, undertaking a differential diagnosis of pathological conditions in commingled skeletal assemblages can be extremely challenging due to the difficulty in reassociating skeletal elements with each other and to an individual, making it impossible to analyze the full distribution of skeletal lesions across the body.…”

“…In addition, the commingled nature of remains may render the calculation and interpretation of disease prevalence challenging (Perry and Edwards 2021). Despite these many limitations, recent paleopathological studies in Europe and the Middle East have demonstrated the possibilities of differential diagnoses of these challenging commingled contexts (e.g., Abegg et al 2021;Assis et al 2018;Austin 2017;Brickley and Buckberry, 2015;Judd 2019;Perry and Edwards 2021). Perry and Edwards (2021) advocate for the use of the biological approach when carrying out differential diagnoses of skeletal lesions which examines each lesion independently and "identifies the underlying biological processes that could produce the skeletal lesions observed" (Perry and Edwards 2021:222), explaining that such an approach is preferred by many paleopathologists as it "allow recognition of co-or multimorbid conditions, rather than assuming all observations present a suite of skeletal lesions from one condition" (Perry and Edwards 2021:222).…”