According to an article published in the current Yearbook of Physical Anthropology,
new research is showing that the origin of Syphilis can be traced
definitively back to Columbus crew. It appears that European skeletons
thought to show evidence of the disease prior to 1492, when Columbus set
sail, are misleading and that the disease did not exist prior to the
explorer's return.
The appraisal was led by two of Armelagos' former graduate students at Emory: Molly Zuckerman, who is now an assistant professor at Mississippi State University, and Kristin Harper, currently a post-doctoral fellow at Columbia University. Additional, authors include Emory anthropologist John Kingston and Megan Harper from the University of Missouri.
Zuckerman says that :
The Santa Maria in 1492 - Evidence points to Columbus bringing back syphilis from the New World
The debate of the origin of Syphilis is very similar to the modern day debate about the origin of the HIV virus that causes AIDS. Nonetheless, new research appears to show that it was the byproduct of the meeting of two previous separate populations. The pathogen was exchanged and began to adapt, in a typical Darwinian natural selection evolution, becoming the disease that still exists today, and prior to antibiotics was considered fatal and caused the suffer terrible symptoms.
The documented case of syphilis in Europe dates back to 1495, and one theory is that the disease mutated to survive in the new European hosts who were used to a colder climate.
Armelagos, a pioneer of the field of bioarcheology, didn't believe the idea when he first heard the Columbus theory for syphilis. He recounts :
However, as they researched the issue further, publishing a paper in 2008, all the evidence continued to point to the Columbus sailors as the origin. What baffled researchers were skeletons with evidence of syphilis that dated from pre 1492 that kept cropping up.
One of the symptoms of the disease is known as caries sicca. It is characterized by pitting and swelling of the long bones and pitting on the skull.
Police investigators often use the premise that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one, and that certainly appears to be the case here. The problem was not the skeletons or the symptoms they preserved, but the dating of them.
People who eat a lot of sea food, where "old carbon" has come up from depths in the ocean, can throw off radio carbon dating by hundreds of years, so researchers looked at the collagen levels to establish the level of sea food consumption in the skeletons, to be certain that the so called "pre Columbus" skeletons were in fact pre Columbus. It appears that the dating of them was wrong, and there is no longer any solid evidence for Syphilis prior to 1492.
Zuckerman concludes :
"This is the first time that all 54 of these cases have been evaluated systematically ... The evidence keeps accumulating that a progenitor of syphilis came from the New World with Columbus' crew and rapidly evolved into the venereal disease that remains with us today."
The appraisal was led by two of Armelagos' former graduate students at Emory: Molly Zuckerman, who is now an assistant professor at Mississippi State University, and Kristin Harper, currently a post-doctoral fellow at Columbia University. Additional, authors include Emory anthropologist John Kingston and Megan Harper from the University of Missouri.
Zuckerman says that :
"Syphilis has been around for 500 years ... People started debating where it came from shortly afterwards, and they haven't stopped since. It was one of the first global diseases, and understanding where it came from and how it spread may help us combat diseases today."
The Santa Maria in 1492 - Evidence points to Columbus bringing back syphilis from the New World
The debate of the origin of Syphilis is very similar to the modern day debate about the origin of the HIV virus that causes AIDS. Nonetheless, new research appears to show that it was the byproduct of the meeting of two previous separate populations. The pathogen was exchanged and began to adapt, in a typical Darwinian natural selection evolution, becoming the disease that still exists today, and prior to antibiotics was considered fatal and caused the suffer terrible symptoms.
The documented case of syphilis in Europe dates back to 1495, and one theory is that the disease mutated to survive in the new European hosts who were used to a colder climate.
Armelagos, a pioneer of the field of bioarcheology, didn't believe the idea when he first heard the Columbus theory for syphilis. He recounts :
"I laughed at the idea that a small group of sailors brought back this disease that caused this major European epidemic."
However, as they researched the issue further, publishing a paper in 2008, all the evidence continued to point to the Columbus sailors as the origin. What baffled researchers were skeletons with evidence of syphilis that dated from pre 1492 that kept cropping up.
One of the symptoms of the disease is known as caries sicca. It is characterized by pitting and swelling of the long bones and pitting on the skull.
Police investigators often use the premise that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one, and that certainly appears to be the case here. The problem was not the skeletons or the symptoms they preserved, but the dating of them.
People who eat a lot of sea food, where "old carbon" has come up from depths in the ocean, can throw off radio carbon dating by hundreds of years, so researchers looked at the collagen levels to establish the level of sea food consumption in the skeletons, to be certain that the so called "pre Columbus" skeletons were in fact pre Columbus. It appears that the dating of them was wrong, and there is no longer any solid evidence for Syphilis prior to 1492.
Zuckerman concludes :
"The origin of syphilis is a fascinating, compelling question ... The current evidence is pretty definitive, but we shouldn't close the book and say we're done with the subject. The great thing about science is constantly being able to understand things in a new light."
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