The paleoepidemiological examination of treponemal infection and leprosy in medieval populations from Northern Europe

Abstract

A principal focus of the discipline of paleopathology is the examination of the epidemiological parameters of infectious disease pathogens in past populations. For over a century, scholars have attempted to establish the source, evolutionary history, and transmission dynamics of treponemal infection.

This study presents the results of a pathological examination of 617 individuals from several leprous and non-leprous cemeteries from England and Denmark, extending through the Viking, Medieval and Early Modern Periods. This research involved the application of macroscopic and radiographic techniques in order to examine the established osseous indicators for treponemal infection and leprosy. This analysis attempts to assess the representation of these conditions in past European populations, and establish the distribution of treponemal infection and leprosy within leper and non-leper cemetery contexts. In addition, this study provides a reexamination of the documentary evidence used to argue for the pre-Columbian existence of treponemal infection in the Old and New Worlds, and the literary material purported to demonstrate a medieval diagnostic confusion between leprosy and syphilis.

The results of this work suggests that on the basis of archaeological, documentary and osteological evidence, the assertion that a medieval diagnostic confusion existed between leprosy and syphilis can no longer be supported. Therefore, it is no longer tenable to use this line of investigation in the search for the pre-Columbian existence of treponemal infection in Europe

In addition, this research contains a radiocarbon analysis of the observed treponemal cases in the sample. The calibrated radiocarbon results made it impossible to assert with assurance that the cases represent pre-Columbian cases of the disease. However, on the basis of the reexamination of available skeletal, archaeological and historical material, it is suggested that the disease was introduced into Northern Europe at some point after the 10 ^th century A.D. Thus, it is suggested that the disease complex was not transported to Europe from the New World by Christopher Columbus and his crew at the climax of the 15^th century.