Were isolated natives really disease resistant?

[Guest guest]

I'm sort of used to the idea that isolated natives were generally

strong and healthy, or at least more so than civilized people. But

then I read this from

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/78844p-72480c.html: " The

mortality rate - or death rate - for the Spanish flu was about 2.5%,

or one in 40 infected " but mortality rate among Inuit Eskimos in

Alaska and other isolated populations was as high as 50%, which

indicates, if true, that the natives might not have been as disease

resistant as we like to believe. And then there was that " smallpox

killed a lot of Indians " story. I remember Wanita said something

disagreeing with it, but I don't remember what she said.

Is there reliable evidence that supports the believe that natives who

stayed with their traditional diet were disease resistant? I am

speaking of infectious diseases.

Roman

[Guest guest]

When did the Inuit come in contact with the Spanish flu? It must have been

after contact with Europeans, no?

Steffanson noted that Inuit who stayed in modern houses died of tuberculosis.

When one missionary realized how harmful the modern houses were he forced

tuberculous people to stay outside and they recovered well.

The data seems to conflict but mostly agree with what Heidi said. Price did

find some folks who had resistance to diseases like the Swiss (and gaelics?)

were to tuberculosis unlike the rest of the world, but perhaps they'd had

more contact with it somewhere in their past at that point.

Chris

" To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are

to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and

servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. " --Theodore

Roosevelt

[Guest guest]

>Is there reliable evidence that supports the believe that natives who

>stayed with their traditional diet were disease resistant? I am

>speaking of infectious diseases.

>

>Roman

I think they WERE disease resistant, but not to new viruses. The data I've

read basically says that the Indians had very few " haplotypes " -- and when

it comes to viruses, it is the haplotypes that count. The Europeans had

something like 100 haplotypes, and the Indians something like 3!

This is because there was a bottleneck in the genetic pool of the Indians

(likely because they came over in just a few small groups). Also the

Europeans had been living in crowded conditions for centuries, and the

virus-prone ones died out. Also the Europeans died in droves of smallpox

when it was first introduced, but there were so many of them it didn't make

much dent.

The Indians, by contrast, had been living in fairly germ free (out in the

open air, lots of sunshine, no sewage in the streets, not huge amounts of

commerce, small communities) kind of conditions. So they were sitting ducks

for new viruses.

I suspect in general the Indians had stronger immune systems though, and

they fought off bacteria (and ate rotten meat, etc.) just fine. The problem

is, the immune system for viruses only works IF it has been exposed to a

certain virus before, or the immune system is " prewired " for that virus.

Brand new viruses can kill the strongest person, if the immune system does

not recognize it. Which is what makes " germ warfare " so scary. Keep in mind

that Price only studied the *survivors.*

It is also true though, that a lot of the Indian mortality happened about

the time Western food was introduced to some extent (booze and wheat?).

Some people believe those foods also fouled up the Europeans, but by the

time the Europeans were colonizing the world the susceptible folks had died

off. Also the introduction of rifles and horses changed the Indian way of

life drastically.

Roman, you can tell that I don't really think it is an " either/or " thing.

" Germs " DO matter, but being healthy you can avoid a lot of them.

Heidi S

[Guest guest]

>a lot of the Indian mortality happened about the time Western food was

>introduced to some extent (booze and wheat?)

Heidi, I agree with everything you said about the Indians and viruses. On

this idea there have been a lot of studies done and one current theory

goes that most of the population of North America died off before ever

seeing a white man, in the 16th and 17th Century. The diseases spread

quickly throughout the continent, much faster than the explorers and

Indian tribes were dieing off in troves so by the time explorers came 100

or 200 years later they found relativly unpopulated areas. In fact the

colony of Plymouth which the Pilgrims made home was the former home of an

Indian tribe that had died off many years ago. What we saw as a

unpopulated wilderness was the end result of forces unwittingly set in

motion by the earliest explorers.

[Guest guest]

I would like to see an analysis of the varying immune responses of the american

indians that lived off of buffalo and those that lived off of corn.

Price excavated skeletons of american indians, and found the pre-columbian

indians to be vastly superior in health based on bone structure than

post-columbian indians. This is continental, so it has nothing to do with

Columbus, but the general time period and the diet... i.e. trasnition to

corn/plant-based diet.

Interesting that the die-off mentions seems to roughly correspond to

this dietary change and to Price's findings in skeleton excavation.

Chris

[Guest guest]

>I would like to see an analysis of the varying immune responses of the

american indians that lived off of buffalo and those that lived off of corn.

My theory too. In the Northeast what my research has come up with is it

depends. For example The Massachusetts became one of the six or seven praying

tribes all situated around Boston. They all were wiped out by disease. They

like all the Algonquin tribes had permanent at least winter villages, used

agriculture but gathered fish, berries, game sometimes from a distance. Some

Wampanoag (where Mayflower came in) survived even with King 's War.

Can't say ocean fish helped as they were all coastal tribes. The Pocumtuc of

this area, also Algonquin survived, not untouched by disease until just before

the end of King 's War. Survivors went to neighboring tribes and were

pretty much lost. The ability to fight back definitely extended survival.The

English brought livestock and most of the disease contrary to the French in

Canada. Allying with the English was more dangerous disease wise. The Iroquois

of upstate NY into Canada on the other hand allied with the French against the

English and Algonquin. The Iroquois are equally to more agricultural, most

able

to defend themselves, less touched by disease, and still on their original

land

today. Smallpox is the disease doing the most out to the Great Lakes

region. On

the West Coast into Canada tuberculosis was the main killer. Spanish brought

disease to Central America and South where agriculture was used. In the

Plains,

thereagain the ability to fight back and as far as I can see the highest

disease resistance. The buffalo had to be killed here to get the same

result as

disease. Most of these tribes were strictly hunter gatherers and constantly

moving to food source.

>

>Price excavated skeletons of american indians, and found the pre-columbian

indians to be vastly superior in health based on bone structure than

post-columbian indians.  This is continental, so it has nothing to do with

Columbus, but the general time period and the diet... i.e. trasnition to

corn/plant-based diet.

>

>Interesting that the die-off mentions seems to roughly correspond to

this dietary change and to Price's findings in skeleton excavation.

Two examples of agriculturally based large pre Columbian extinct cultures are

Cahokia and Anasazi. Many theories on where they went to or why. Drought

mostly. Mass migration into other existing tribes or breaking off into new

tribes and moving is more likely to me than everyone dieing which hasn't been

proved.

Wanita

[Guest guest]

Wasn't this much later?

I think the Natives started dying off soon after Columbus landed. The

Europeans caried all kinds of nasty germs the natives were not prepared for.

The smallpox infested blankets came much later as I recall.

Zahra

In a message dated 5/7/03 7:29:56 PM Pacific Daylight Time,

wanitawa@... writes:

> Didn't disagree with this, Roman. You'll see in my message back to in

> this same thread that I've found smallpox to be spread from Massachusetts

> to

> the Great Lakes. This is from historical records of one military man

> telling

> others that giving smallpox infested blankets would give them the disease.

> Don't have the paragraph available from the book but it also went on to

> tell

> that if the disease didn't kill them alcohol should then be used to get

> them to

> do anything you want.

>

> Wanita

[Guest guest]

>The diseases spread

>quickly throughout the continent, much faster than the explorers and

>Indian tribes were dieing off in troves so by the time explorers came 100

>or 200 years later they found relativly unpopulated areas. In fact the

>colony of Plymouth which the Pilgrims made home was the former home of an

>Indian tribe that had died off many years ago. What we saw as a

>unpopulated wilderness was the end result of forces unwittingly set in

>motion by the earliest explorers.

I read that -- it is really fascinating. To me it brings home the idea that

is isn't an " either/or " thing -- " germ theory " vs. " health " -- germs and

people have been at war since forever. A healthy person can certainly fight

off more germs than otherwise, but there are no guarantees. We live in a

quantum universe, and there is never " one cause " of anything!

Heidi S

[Guest guest]

And then there was that " smallpox

>killed a lot of Indians " story. I remember Wanita said something

>disagreeing with it, but I don't remember what she said.

Didn't disagree with this, Roman. You'll see in my message back to in

this same thread that I've found smallpox to be spread from Massachusetts to

the Great Lakes. This is from historical records of one military man telling

others that giving smallpox infested blankets would give them the disease.

Don't have the paragraph available from the book but it also went on to tell

that if the disease didn't kill them alcohol should then be used to get

them to

do anything you want.

Wanita

[Guest guest]

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/29/science/social/29INDI.html?

pagewanted=all

ABSTRACT - Article on wide-ranging study conducted by team of

anthropologists, economists and paleopathologists that has concluded

that general health of Native Americans had apparently been

deteriorating for centuries before Columbus arrived in New World in

1492; photos (M) Europeans first came to the Western Hemisphere

armed with guns, the cross and, unknowingly, pathogens. Against the

alien agents of disease, the indigenous people never had a chance.

Their immune systems were unprepared to fight smallpox and measles,

malaria and yellow fever.

The epidemics that resulted have been well documented. What had not

been clearly recognized until now, though, is that the general

health of Native Americans had apparently been deteriorating for

centuries before 1492.

> I would like to see an analysis of the varying immune responses of

the american indians that lived off of buffalo and those that lived

off of corn.

>

> Price excavated skeletons of american indians, and found the pre-

columbian indians to be vastly superior in health based on bone

structure than post-columbian indians. This is continental, so it

has nothing to do with Columbus, but the general time period and the

diet... i.e. trasnition to corn/plant-based diet.

>

> Interesting that the die-off mentions seems to roughly

correspond to this dietary change and to Price's findings in

skeleton excavation.

>

> Chris

[Guest guest]

,

> On

>this idea there have been a lot of studies done and one current theory

>goes that most of the population of North America died off before ever

>seeing a white man, in the 16th and 17th Century.

Like to see the archaeological evidence to back that theory up other than the

Mound Builder (Cahokian) Anasazi cultures, both agricultural. Toltec and Olmec

in Mexico. In the Northeast there's evidence of Vikings prior to the Mayflower

further north but not in large amounts. Any die off I'd attribute to weather,

lack of food more than disease. Either way there would need to be proof of a

larger population beyond the two above in an earlier time and much evidence of

why in the remains prior. Its difficult because until agriculture was used

they

were nomadic hunter gatherers so when someone died they were not buried in a

cemetary with others.

The diseases spread

>quickly throughout the continent, much faster than the explorers and

>Indian tribes were dieing off in troves so by the time explorers came 100

>or 200 years later they found relativly unpopulated areas. In fact the

>colony of Plymouth which the Pilgrims made home was the former home of an

>Indian tribe that had died off many years ago.

There may be archaeological evidence of that. The Wampanoag, the first and

nearest tribe the Pilgrims had contact with still exists. Saw a documentary

the

other day with a Wamponoag woman who was speaking from Plymouth Plantation

where she works.

What we saw as a

>unpopulated wilderness was the end result of forces unwittingly set in

>motion by the earliest explorers.

Here settlements were made just because it seemed it was unpopulated or up for

the taking. Deeds were given by the governor without asking except for maybe

half a dozen towns that asked, got approval. Likely it wasn't understood land

was being taken. The local tribe here in the mid 1600's , The Pocumtuc

Confederacy's territorial boundaries reached from middle Massachusetts, around

Springfield , south just below the Connecticut line, west almost to NY, north

to just above the present Vermont and New Hampshire borders.

Wanita

[Guest guest]

>ABSTRACT - Article on wide-ranging study conducted by team of

>anthropologists, economists and paleopathologists that has concluded

>that general health of Native Americans had apparently been

>deteriorating for centuries before Columbus arrived in New World in

>1492; photos (M) Europeans first came to the Western Hemisphere

>armed with guns, the cross and, unknowingly, pathogens. Against the

>alien agents of disease, the indigenous people never had a chance.

>Their immune systems were unprepared to fight smallpox and measles,

>malaria and yellow fever.

There was an interesting note I read somewhere that you can track

the spread of corn-eating among the Indians by the degree of

arthritis in the bones. Ditto with Romans and wheat. Something

about grains in large amounts and human beings may not click!

Or maybe it is just that large populations lots more strain (if

a crop fails, more people die, pathogens travel more).

As the Dogtor mentions, the plagues in Europe coincided with

diet changes -- either the diet change happened because of

more population, or the diet change made them more susceptible,

or both.

I've also read that in South America, several civilizations rose

and fell. The main culprit was thought to be overpopulation with

it's attendant food shortages when the weather got bad. The populations

there were definitely in trouble before the Spaniards got there.

Still, the Indians that were living mostly on meat still managed

to get smallpox. You can be very " disease resistant " and still

get sick from a new virus.

Heidi

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 5/8/03 7:24:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time, rom00@...

writes:

> This provides me with a good opportunity to ask a question I've been

> wanting to ask. It seems that the fact that whether a pathogen is new

> to you is the most important factor. You can be very strong and

> resistant, but come SARS or whatever, and you might just die as

> everyone else. Or am I making a logical mistake due to lack of sleep?

I think that can be true or not... I don't think it is necessarily true

though. The Black Death swept across Europe and other areas rapidly killing

at least a third, maybe a half of the population. It didn't wipe out some

areas and not others. In any given city or village it just wiped out half

the people there. It killed nearly everyone susceptible in the first strike.

Moreover, there was stable low-level exposure to the Black Death for years

in every region it hit, indicating *everyone* was exposed to it to some

degree. It is my opinion that a mutation was responsible for the sudden

outbreak of 1438, in which case whatever it was that made it so much more

virulent than the existing strain was something *noone* was exposed to.

There's simply no chance that the half of the people who didn't die could

have either had exposure to the virulent strain before, or could have avoided

exposure during the 1438 outbreak. So only the susceptible people died-- and

no doubt the Great Famine, three years of endless rain wiping out most of the

food supply, contributed to immune system problems!

With SARS, given how incredibly virulent it can be, and given the ability to

get it under control, the question seems up in the air whether it is a matter

of susceptibility or exposure or both.

Chris

" To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are

to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and

servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. " --Theodore

Roosevelt

[Guest guest]

Heidi-

Is there any definitive information on this? And were the sick meat-eating

Indians also eating corn and other problem foods too? I'm not suggesting

any population is going to be 100% disease-resistant, but at the very least

I'd imagine there'd be a drastic difference between a corn-based society

and a meat-centric one.

>Still, the Indians that were living mostly on meat still managed

>to get smallpox. You can be very " disease resistant " and still

>get sick from a new virus.

-

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 5/8/03 8:07:54 PM Pacific Daylight Time,

s.fisher22@... writes:

> >>>>Even before the Romans. I recently took a physical

> anthropology course where we learned that through tens

> of thousands of years of fossil records for

> hominids/homo sapiens, there is very little tooth

> decay or arthritis. As soon as man settled down in

> the middle east and started cultivating grain, poof,

> guess what appears in the bones?

Ray Audette, the Author of Neanderthin claims that arthritis follows the

native American cultivation of corn.

Says it follows corn without variation.

Zahra

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 5/8/03 10:32:16 PM Pacific Daylight Time,

panamabob@... writes:

>

>

>

> 1491

>

> a simple search on google will pull it up.

>

You might try a search on Pre Columbian America

" If Hussain fought to quench his worldly desires,

then I do not understand why his sisters, wives and children accompanied him.

It stands to reason

therefore that he sacrificed purely for Islam. "

- Dickens

[Guest guest]

>>>>>>Is there any definitive information on this? And were the sick

meat-eating

Indians also eating corn and other problem foods too? I'm not suggesting

any population is going to be 100% disease-resistant, but at the very least

I'd imagine there'd be a drastic difference between a corn-based society

and a meat-centric one.

>Still, the Indians that were living mostly on meat still managed

>to get smallpox. You can be very " disease resistant " and still

>get sick from a new virus.

-------->this brings up a question...are the anti

bacterial/fungal/parasitic/viral fatty acids (lauric/caprylic and capric?)

as well as cholesterol (anti-infective, according to Ravnskov) *effective*

against brand new viruses (such as SARS), parasites, fungus and/or

bacteria?? Or just ones the body's already come into contact with in some

measure previously?

this is probably a really stupid question, but i don't know enough about

immunity to know better ;-)

Suze Fisher

Lapdog Design, Inc.

Web Design & Development

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg/

mailto:s.fisher22@...

[Guest guest]

>>>>Even before the Romans. I recently took a physical

anthropology course where we learned that through tens

of thousands of years of fossil records for

hominids/homo sapiens, there is very little tooth

decay or arthritis. As soon as man settled down in

the middle east and started cultivating grain, poof,

guess what appears in the bones?

--------->interesting...i don't really have a comment on that (other than

" interesting... " ) but i was wondering if you are the Judy who was at the

conference, who I worked with, who I sat next to at the Ethiopian dinner,

and who's also in the pixelated photo on the website!?

Suze Fisher

Lapdog Design, Inc.

Web Design & Development

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg/

mailto:s.fisher22@...

[Guest guest]

Suze-

To the degree these substances are effective against infectious organisms,

I think the body's previous exposure to same will have very little or no

bearing. The only possible way I can think of previous exposure would

matter would be if it took exposure to teach the body to rush those

substances to the site of infection.

The more important factor is which kinds of protein coats and cell walls

and whatnot those acids (and maybe cholesterol) are effective against.

>this brings up a question...are the anti

>bacterial/fungal/parasitic/viral fatty acids (lauric/caprylic and capric?)

>as well as cholesterol (anti-infective, according to Ravnskov) *effective*

>against brand new viruses (such as SARS), parasites, fungus and/or

>bacteria?? Or just ones the body's already come into contact with in some

>measure previously?

-

[Guest guest]

Hey folks....

Sorry to jump in so unprepared but there was an article I think in the

NY Times called 1492.

It discussed the world before the history books rewrote it and the

number of natives in North America prior to the advance of new world

explorers.

I will try and find it, it was the most important thing of late that I

have read in humans real effect on his/her ecosystem!!

Tim

Suze Fisher wrote:

> >>>>Even before the Romans. I recently took a physical

> anthropology course where we learned that through tens

> of thousands of years of fossil records for

> hominids/homo sapiens, there is very little tooth

> decay or arthritis. As soon as man settled down in

> the middle east and started cultivating grain, poof,

> guess what appears in the bones?

>

> --------->interesting...i don't really have a comment on that (other

> than

> " interesting... " ) but i was wondering if you are the Judy who was at

> the

> conference, who I worked with, who I sat next to at the Ethiopian

> dinner,

> and who's also in the pixelated photo on the website!?

>

> Suze Fisher

> Lapdog Design, Inc.

> Web Design & Development

> http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg/

> mailto:s.fisher22@...

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

>This provides me with a good opportunity to ask a question I've been

>wanting to ask. It seems that the fact that whether a pathogen is new

>to you is the most important factor. You can be very strong and

>resistant, but come SARS or whatever, and you might just die as

>everyone else. Or am I making a logical mistake due to lack of sleep?

>

>Roman

I think a lot of the issue is: is it a bacteria or a virus? The body

fights the two very differently. I tend to think that bacteria

don't stand much chance in a healthy immune system, esp.

in the gut with a probiotic diet. Even tuberculosis. I did hear

a talk from one lady who went to Africa and was testing cows

and families for tuberculosis in the outlying (more native) regions.

I guess a lot of the families test positive for tuberculosis -- but

didn't seem ill from it.

But with viruses, a lot matters on if the immune system recognizes

the virus. This recognition is often inborn, or passed in mother's

milk. If the immune system is put on alert by a virus, it can usually

fight it off (except AIDS, which does a presto-chango act!). But then,

if the immune system is not in good shape, it still can't fight it. Or,

if the virus is TOO different, it takes too long for the immune system

to recognize it. For instance,

there was a case in the army where some young, healthy boot

campers were on a forced march while they showed some

symptoms of a flu. THEY DIED, even though

normally a young person does not die of the average flu.

I have no doubt that the healthy Indians fought off smallpox

better than the heavy corn eaters, but there were other

factors most likely -- like whether they were in a

" starving time " (some tribes went hungry in the early

spring, when game was hard to come by), whether they

had been decimated by another tribe (lots of battles),

and how much distilled booze they had access to. All

the contemporary data though that I've read is that

smallpox really wiped them out, but most Europeans

survived it as a childhood illness.

For what it is worth though, syphilus really had

a major impact on the white folks and something

like 25% of European males became infected. It is hard to

say if it affected Europeans more or not, because it was

Not Talked About at that time. Syphilus was endemic

to the Indians, but I haven't heard it mentioned as a

major cause of illness or death -- I wonder if they

were more immune to it. Syphilus was called The Pox

when it first hit Europe, and it caused some major

outbreaks at first (after Columbus brought it back!)

and then became a longer-term illness. There is a

GREAT book about this called " Pox " .

Heidi S

[Guest guest]

>bacterial/fungal/parasitic/viral fatty acids (lauric/caprylic and capric?)

>as well as cholesterol (anti-infective, according to Ravnskov) *effective*

>against brand new viruses (such as SARS), parasites, fungus and/or

>bacteria?? Or just ones the body's already come into contact with in some

>measure previously?

>

>this is probably a really stupid question, but i don't know enough about

>immunity to know better ;-)

Sheesh. Immunity is SOOOO complicated I don't think anyone really

understands it. I'm just getting into phages myself -- I'm beginning

to think a lot of bacterial immunity might be due to local phages

(like the ones in kefir you drink) so where does that fit in? And as

for things like lauric acid -- most antibacterial agents work on

one type of bacteria. Salt, for instance, is a potent antibacterial

agent, but it doesn't inhibit kimchi bacteria at all. Coconuts DO

rot, and they also make good kefir!

Viruses get INTO your cells though, which makes them a lot

more complicated than bacteria. Your body generally learns

to recognize them at some point when they cause damage,

and then destroys them. It tends to remember the pattern (if

you survive) and you don't generally get that virus again. Except

for viruses like herpes that " hide " in nerve cells and pop out now

and again.

I do not believe there is any cure

that is effective against all bacteria or all viruses -- if a bad mutation

happens, you may or may not survive based on all kinds of factors,

not least of which is your genetic haplotype. The good news is, that

viruses don't survive real well outside body tissues (or sewage, in

the case of SARS!).

Heidi S

[Guest guest]

>Hey folks....

>Sorry to jump in so unprepared but there was an article I think in the

>NY Times called 1492.

>It discussed the world before the history books rewrote it and the

>number of natives in North America prior to the advance of new world

>explorers.

>I will try and find it, it was the most important thing of late that I

>have read in humans real effect on his/her ecosystem!!

>Tim

That's the one I was thinking of -- I'd read it before, it's a *great*

article. But

it basically talks about the demise of the Indians AFTER the Spanish got to

America (pre Pilgrim though). Other people have addressed the corn issue,

and other dietary issues (like overcrowding in Mexico). This article made

me rethink the whole issue of America and Indians and History though.

=====

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/03/mann.htm

.. Between Soto's and La Salle's visits, Perttula believes, the Caddoan

population fell from about 200,000 to about 8,500—a drop of nearly 96

percent. In the eighteenth century the tally shrank further, to 1,400. An

equivalent loss today in the population of New York City would reduce it to

56,000—not enough to fill Yankee Stadium. " That's one reason whites think

of Indians as nomadic hunters, " says Thornton, an anthropologist at

the University of California at Los Angeles. " Everything else—all the

heavily populated urbanized societies—was wiped out. "

Heidi S

[Guest guest]

Here's the article from the NYT, not sure I like the title but there's

interesting info.--- Dedy

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\

------------------------------------------------

Don't Blame Columbus for All the Indians' Ills -- By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/29/science/social/29INDI.html

Europeans first came to the Western Hemisphere armed with guns, the cross and,

unknowingly, pathogens. Against the alien agents of disease, the indigenous

people never had a chance. Their immune systems were unprepared to fight

smallpox and measles, malaria and yellow fever.

The epidemics that resulted have been well documented. What had not been clearly

recognized until now, though, is that the general health of Native Americans had

apparently been deteriorating for centuries before 1492.

That is the conclusion of a team of anthropologists, economists and

paleopathologists who have completed a wide-ranging study of the health of

people living in the Western Hemisphere in the last 7,000 years.

The researchers, whose work is regarded as the most comprehensive yet, say their

findings in no way diminish the dreadful impact Old World diseases had on the

people of the New World. But it suggests that the New World was hardly a

healthful Eden.

More than 12,500 skeletons from 65 sites in North and South America - slightly

more than half of them from pre-Columbians - were analyzed for evidence of

infections, malnutrition and other health problems in various social and

geographical settings.

The researchers used standardized criteria to rate the incidence and degree of

these health factors by time and geography. Some trends leapt out from the

resulting index. The healthiest sites for Native Americans were typically the

oldest sites, predating Columbus by more than 1,000 years. Then came a marked

decline.

" Our research shows that health was on a downward trajectory long before

Columbus arrived, " Dr. H. Steckel and Dr. Jerome C. Rose, study leaders,

wrote in " The Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the Western

Hemisphere, " a book they edited. It was published in August.

Dr. Steckel, an economist and anthropologist at Ohio State University, and Dr.

Rose, an anthropologist at the University of Arkansas, stressed in interviews

that their findings in no way mitigated the responsibility of Europeans as

bearers of disease devastating to native societies. Yet the research, they said,

should correct a widely held misperception that the New World was virtually free

of disease before 1492.

In an epilogue to the book, Dr. Philip D. Curtin, an emeritus professor of

history at s Hopkins University, said the skeletal evidence of the physical

well-being of pre-Columbians " shows conclusively that however much it may have

deteriorated on contact with the outer world, it was far from paradisiacal

before the Europeans and Africans arrived. "

About 50 scientists and scholars joined in the research and contributed chapters

to the book. One of them, Dr. J. Armelagos of Emory University, a pioneer

in the field of paleopathology, said in an interview that the research provided

an " evolutionary history of disease in the New World. "

The surprise, Dr. Armelagos said, was not the evidence of many infectious

diseases, but that the pre-Columbians were not better nourished and in general

healthier.

Others said the research, supported by the National Science Foundation and Ohio

State, would be the talk of scholarly seminars for years to come and the

foundation for more detailed investigations of pre-Columbian health. Dr. Steckel

is considering conducting a similar study of health patterns well into European

prehistory.

" Although some of the authors occasionally appear to overstate the strength of

the case they can make, they are also careful to indicate the limitations of the

evidence, " Dr. Curtin wrote of the Steckel-Rose research. " They recognize that

skeletal material is the best comparative evidence we have for the human

condition over such a long period of time, but it is not perfect. "

The research team gathered evidence on seven basic indicators of chronic

physical conditions that can be detected in skeletons - namely, degenerative

joint disease, dental health, stature, anemia, arrested tissue development,

infections and trauma from injuries. Dr. Steckel and Dr. Rose called this " by

far the largest comparable data set of this type ever created. "

The researchers attributed the widespread decline in health in large part to the

rise of agriculture and urban living. People in South and Central America began

domesticating crops more than 5,000 years ago, and the rise of cities there

began more than 2,000 years ago.

These were mixed blessings. Farming tended to limit the diversity of diets, and

the congestion of towns and cities contributed to the rapid spread of disease.

In the widening inequalities of urban societies, hard work on low-protein diets

left most people vulnerable to illness and early death.

Similar signs of deleterious health effects have been found in the ancient

Middle East, where agriculture started some 10,000 years ago. But the health

consequences of farming and urbanism, Dr. Rose said, appeared to have been more

abrupt in the New World.

The more mobile, less densely settled populations were usually the healthiest

pre-Columbians. They were taller and had fewer signs of infectious lesions in

their bones than residents of large settlements. Their diet was sufficiently

rich and varied, the researchers said, for them to largely avoid the symptoms of

childhood deprivation, like stunting and anemia. Even so, in the simplest

hunter-gatherer societies, few people survived past age 50. In the healthiest

cultures in the 1,000 years before Columbus, a life span of no more than 35

years might be usual.

In examining the skeletal evidence, paleopathologists rated the healthiest

pre-Columbians to be people living 1,200 years ago on the coast of Brazil, where

they had access to ample food from land and sea. Their relative isolation

protected them from most infectious diseases.

Conditions also must have been salubrious along the coasts of South Carolina and

Southern California, as well as among the farming and hunting societies in what

is now the Midwest. Indian groups occupied the top 14 spots of the health index,

and 11 of these sites predate the arrival of Europeans.

The least healthy people in the study were from the urban cultures of Mexico and

Central America, notably where the Maya civilization flourished presumably at

great cost to life and limb, and the Zuni of New Mexico. The Zuni lived at a

400-year-old site, Hawikku, a crowded, drought-prone farming pueblo that

presumably met its demise before European settlers made contact.

It was their hard lot, Dr. Rose said, to be farmers " on the boundaries of

sustainable environments. "

" Pre-Columbian populations were among the healthiest and the least healthy in

our sample, " Dr. Steckel and Dr. Rose said. " While pre-Columbian natives may

have lived in a disease environment substantially different from that in other

parts of the globe, the original inhabitants also brought with them, or evolved

with, enough pathogens to create chronic conditions of ill health under

conditions of systematic agriculture and urban living. "

In recent examinations of 1,000-year-old Peruvian mummies, for example,

paleopathologists discovered clear traces of tuberculosis in their lungs, more

evidence that native Americans might already have been infected with some of the

diseases that were thought to have been brought to the New World by European

explorers.

Tuberculosis bears another message : as an opportunistic disease, it strikes

when times are tough, often overwhelming the bodies of people already weakened

by malnutrition, poor sanitation in urban centers and debilitated immune

systems.

The Steckel-Rose research extended the survey to the health consequences of the

first contacts with American Indians by Europeans and Africans and the health of

European-Americans and African-Americans up to the early 20th century.

Not surprisingly, African-American slaves were near the bottom of the health

index. An examination of plantation slaves buried in South Carolina, Dr. Steckel

said, revealed that their poor health compared to that of " pre-Columbian Indian

populations threatened with extinction. "

On the other hand, blacks buried at Philadelphia's African Church in the 1800's

were in the top half of the health index. Their general conditions were

apparently superior to those of small-town, middle-class whites, Dr. Steckel

said.

The researchers found one exception to the rule that the healthiest sites for

Native Americans were the oldest sites. Equestrian nomads of the Great Plains of

North America in the 19th century seemed to enjoy excellent health, near the top

of the index. They were not fenced in to farms or cities.

In a concluding chapter of their book, Dr. Steckel and Dr. Rose said the study

showed that " the health decline was precipitous with the changes in ecological

environments where people lived. " It is not a new idea in anthropology, they

conceded, " but scholars in general have yet to absorb it. "

Re: Re: Were isolated natives really disease

resistant?

Heidi-

Is there any definitive information on this? And were the sick meat-eating

Indians also eating corn and other problem foods too? I'm not suggesting

any population is going to be 100% disease-resistant, but at the very least

I'd imagine there'd be a drastic difference between a corn-based society

and a meat-centric one.

>Still, the Indians that were living mostly on meat still managed

>to get smallpox. You can be very " disease resistant " and still

>get sick from a new virus.

-

[Guest guest]

1491

a simple search on google will pull it up.

Re: Re: Were isolated natives really disease

resistant?

> Hey folks....

> Sorry to jump in so unprepared but there was an article I think in the

> NY Times called 1492.

> It discussed the world before the history books rewrote it and the

> number of natives in North America prior to the advance of new world

> explorers.

> I will try and find it, it was the most important thing of late that I

> have read in humans real effect on his/her ecosystem!!

> Tim

>

> Suze Fisher wrote:

>

> > >>>>Even before the Romans. I recently took a physical

> > anthropology course where we learned that through tens

> > of thousands of years of fossil records for

> > hominids/homo sapiens, there is very little tooth

> > decay or arthritis. As soon as man settled down in

> > the middle east and started cultivating grain, poof,

> > guess what appears in the bones?

> >

> > --------->interesting...i don't really have a comment on that (other

> > than

> > " interesting... " ) but i was wondering if you are the Judy who was at

> > the

> > conference, who I worked with, who I sat next to at the Ethiopian

> > dinner,

> > and who's also in the pixelated photo on the website!?

> >

> > Suze Fisher

> > Lapdog Design, Inc.

> > Web Design & Development

> > http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg/

> > mailto:s.fisher22@...

> >

> >

> >

> >