The researchers analyzed more than 12,500 skeletons - half of them
pre-Columbian - from 65 sites in North and South America for evidence
of infections, malnutrition and other health problems.
The study - "The Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the
Western Hemisphere", edited by Dr. Richard H. Steckel and Dr. Jerome
C. Rose - discovered that the haleness of Native-Americans declined
markedly in the 1000 years before Columbus "discovered" them.
The vast majority of the skeletons showed telltale signs of
advanced degenerative joint disease, deteriorating dental health,
stature, anemia, arrested tissue development, infections and trauma
from injuries. These were attributed by the participants to limited
diets and urban congestion. People became shorter and died earlier -
on average at age 35 - as the centuries passed.
"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.
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