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Introduction
Publications
Publications (88)
Coccidioidomycosis is an infectious fungal disease endemic in Bolivia's Gran Chaco region that is caused by inspiration of the spores of Coccidiodes species. It is a respiratory pathology that can spread to the skeleton and produce diffuse lytic lesions in different parts of the body. This disease has rarely been described in historic populations,...
The Tombs of the Nobles are located in ancient Thebes (modern Luxor, Egypt) and are primarily the site of elite burials. One such is the monumental funerary complex of Neferhotep, which is characterised by several tombs arranged around a central court: TT49, TT187, TT362, TT363, and TT347, which have been already excavated, while TT348 is still clo...
A relic (from the Latin reliquiae: remains) is the body (or part) of a deceased holy person or belongings kept as an object of reverence. The long-term preservation of relics is a priority for many religious and secular communities and often anthropologists, involved in their restoration for conservative purposes, collect anthropological and paleop...
Objective: To document skin lesions on a mummified individual from the XIX century and to diagnose the pathology based historical documentation and physical examination.
Materials: Marie Leonie Martin (1863–1941) was a Roman Catholic nun. Her naturally mummified body is currently preserved in the Monastery of the Visitation in Caen (France). On the...
In the collective imagination derived from scientific and popular literature, Triceratops often faced each other in combat. Thus, from the second half of the twentieth century, these ceratopsids were described as pugnacious animals. This arises primarily from the interpretation of extracranial fenestrae in ceratopsids being the result of combat tra...
In the collective imagination derived from scientific and popular literature, Triceratops often faced each other in combat. Thus, from the second half of the twentieth century, these ceratopsids were described as pugnacious animals. This arises primarily from the interpretation of extracranial fenestrae in ceratopsids being the result of combat tra...
Blessed Egidio was a revered Catholic friar who lived in Basilicata (southern Italy) between the 15th and 16th centuries A.D. His natural mummy is preserved in the Mother Church of Laurenzana, the village where he lived. During the recent restoration and conservation of the relic, palaeopathological analysis was carried out. This revealed osteolyti...
This study focusses on some diseases that occurred in the human remains from the Samnitic necropolis of Opi Val Fondillo (AQ) by the river Sangro in the middle of the National Park of Abruzzo (Central Italy). Up to now, 89 people have undergone general anthropological investigations. Further inquiries were necessary. The most common pathological di...
The Valley of the Nobles is a burial area that is located between the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, together with which it constitutes the Theban Necropolis. The Valley of the Nobles houses the tombs of ancient aristocratic families, which include the monumental complex of the Neferhotep tomb, catalogued as TT49 (XVIIIth Dynasty...
Variations in the number, size and shape of the foramina transversaria of cervical vertebrae can affect the anatomical course of vital blood vessels and nerves, with the risk for pathological conditions, like vertebrobasilar insufficiency. This can result in compression of the vertebral artery during neck movements, which is characterised by headac...
Objectives
The objective was to develop an odontometric technique for sex estimation based on dental measurements from adult individuals, and to evaluate its applicability and reliability for diagnosis of sex of nonadult skeletal remains.
Materials and methods
This study was conducted on the permanent dentition of 132 individuals (70 males, 62 fem...
In the mid-eighteenth century, King Charles III of Spain started to explore the ruins of the ancient city of Herculaneum. Since then, several medical and surgical instruments made of bronze and iron have been found. The archaeological digs carried out in 1982 in the area corresponding to the ancient shoreline of Her-culaneum brought to light not on...
The aim was to compare anthropometric profiles, body composition, and somatotypes of female volleyball players grouped according to player status (National League Divisions) and function. The study assessed 62 volleyball players and 12 beach volleyball players (mean age, 23.58, s = 7.74 years). Anthropometric measures included height, body mass, bo...
In this contribution, we would like to address the ethical issues concerning detention and exposition in museums of human remains. Italian literature on the subject is still very poor in contrast with other countries. We will present two emblematic examples of complex cases involving Italian museums, requiring ethical reflection. The first is the c...
The conference paper show a particular case of a brain conservation. Analysis show the morphology and the mineral composition of sample understudy
Post mortem abnormal modification of bone are known as pseudopathologies. The geochemical characteristic of the burial soil and/or the presence of biological agents may produce marked changes in bone preservation. This could be the case for a young individual, E74, from Herculaneum, which was a Roman town near Naples completely destroyed by the vol...
Objectives: The current study seeks to determine if a sample of foragers, farmers, and pastoral-ists are distinguishable based on their dental microwear texture signatures. Materials and methods: The study included a sample of 719 individuals from 51 archeological sites (450 farmers, 192 foragers, 77 pastoralists). All were over age 12 and sexes we...
The extinct species of shark Carcharocles megalodon (Class: Chondrichthyes; Order: Lamniformes) is considered one of the largest and most powerful predators that populated the temperate seas around the world between the middle Miocene and the Pliocene periods (15.9-2.6 My). The reconstruction of its evolutionary history and ecology is based mainly...
The extinct species of shark Carcharocles megalodon (Class: Chondrichthyes; Order: Lamniformes) is considered one of the largest and most powerful predators that populated the temperate seas around the world between the middle Miocene and the Pliocene periods (15.9-2.6 My). The reconstruction of its evolutionary history and ecology is based mainly...
Paleopathology is the science that studies the origin and evolution of diseases. The interest in this discipline derives from the fact that the frequency and distribution of the pathologies that have affected the extinct species, correlate with their ecology and ethology. This assumption is also valid in the case of Carcharocles megalodon, the larg...
Paleopathology is the science that studies the origin and evolution of diseases. The interest in this discipline derives from the fact that the frequency and distribution of the pathologies that have affected the extinct species, correlate with their ecology and ethology. This assumption is also valid in the case of Carcharocles megalodon, the larg...
Background:
This study is based in an analysis of the skeletal remains of an adult male from the Teramo Sant'Anna archaeological site (7th-12th centuries of the Common Era, Teramo, Italy).
Results and discussion:
The individual shows distinct abnormalities that principally involve asymmetric hypoplasia and dysmorphogenesis of the facial skeleton...
Surgical extraction of teeth due to dental pathologies is a relatively common procedure in modern man. The healing of the wound that results occurs in gradual and sequential stages, such that the analysis of this repair process can be very useful in forensic investigations on human remains. The following study reports on a particular case where the...
This study details a severe case of Scheuermann’s disease (SD) in a well-preserved skeleton of a juvenile male (designated TOR302), dated to 3rd–4th century CE, from the late Roman necropolis of Torrenueva (Granada, Spain). Individual TOR302 shows an evident kyphotic curve in the thoraco-lumbar spine, which is characterised by: (i) vertebral bodies...
The aim of this study is to present a rare abnormality of the clavicle (Code: SGS01) that was discovered in an ossuary in the Church of San Gaetano (Sulmona, central Italy; XVII-XIX centuries CE). In the middle third, the clavicle had three areas with losses of substance in the form of oval-shaped foramina with maximum diameters of 1-2 cm that were...
This chapter provides examples where extreme post-mortem mechanical and thermal events affected the conditions of teeth in terms of presence and appearance. It is important to understand dental anatomy and the physical properties of teeth in order to properly recover and study them. The chapter describes the extraordinary cases that make it clear t...
The fast, high-throughput distinction between palaeoanthropological/archaeological remains and recent forensic/clinical bone samples is of vital importance in the field of medico-legal science. In this paper, a novel dating method was developed using the autofluorescence of human bones and the confocal laser scanning microscope as the means to dist...
Introduction:
Historical sources and anthropological investigations, with the indispensable support of radiology, bring to light pathological evidence of the past.
Case presentation:
The purpose of this article is to present the radiological investigation conducted on the mummy of the Maronite Joseph Tyan (1760-1820), a famous patriarch who guid...
Cranial and dental anthropometry is commonly used in many areas of research, e.g., in forensic anthropology and paleoanthropology. We propose new craniometric and dental landmarks and distances that may have important applications in physical anthropology. Furthermore, a classical anthropometrical approach was applied to quantify the correlation be...
In skeletal remains, teeth are a valuable source of information regarding the biological profile of an individual, as well as dietary patterns and health. Atypical dental wear and oral lesions are especially helpful in reconstructions of dietary patterns in populations of varying subsistence and the use of teeth as “a third hand” or as “a tool”. Fo...
The ad 79 eruption of Vesuvius buried several towns under tens of metres of ash, including Pompeii and Herculaneum. The latter was a coastal town located approximately 7. km from the vent; it was hit by a pyroclastic surge, a wave of hot gas and ash, as the people waited for rescue boats in boathouses and on the beach. The current study examines th...
div class="title">Using a White Light Confocal Profiler for Ancient Diet Reconstruction
- Volume 21 Issue S3 - Ashley Remy, Christopher Schmidt, Ruggero D' Anastasio
This study is based on the skeletal remains of an adult female from the ancient city of Herculaneum (Naples, Italy), who was a victim of the eruption of the nearby Vesuvius Volcano on 24-25 August, AD 79.
Examination of the maxillofacial region revealed evidence of unilateral condylar fracture and dislocation, as well as traumatic dental injuries....
The increase of bony mass in a small Cyprinodontidae from the Messinian deposit of Monte Tondo (Ravenna, Italy); paleoecological implications. The ichthyofauna of the late Messinian succession of Monte Tondo (Ravenna, Italy) is examined. Forty Aphanius crassicaudus, one clupeid and five goby specimens are described. Morphometric and meristic charac...
Recent forensic studies have shown that the hyoid bone is a sexually dimorphic element of the human skeleton. Given the advanced techniques of collecting human remains in archaeological and forensic contexts, the recovery of hyoid bones is now more frequent in skeletal samples. For that reason the authors propose a new method for estimating sex bas...
An enormous earthquake in L'Aquila in 2009 brought to light human bodies buried in the underground rooms of the medieval St. John the Evangelist church (Casentino, Central Italy). Among the remains we discovered a human fetus, whose post-cranial bones were wrapped in bandages and cranial bones were reallocated inside a sort of hood. Anthropometrica...
The description of a Neanderthal hyoid from Kebara Cave (Israel) in 1989 fuelled scientific debate on the evolution of speech and complex language. Gross anatomy of the Kebara 2 hyoid differs little from that of modern humans. However, whether Homo neanderthalensis could use speech or complex language remains controversial. Similarity in overall sh...
Dental enamel hypoplasia is usually read as a sign of a systematic growth disturbance during childhood. Following the analysis of human teeth from Herculaneum (79 AD, Central Italy), the authors focused on linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) manifestations in order to delineate a possible correlation between their frequency and distribution and the eart...
In 1982, some occasional excavations in the area corresponding to the ancient beach of Ercolano brought to light the rests of around 250 individuals, victims of the eruption of the Vesuvius. This exceptional recovery constitutes an essential patrimony for the reconstruction of the paleobiology and the paleopathology of the human populations in Roma...
The Authors describe a Messinian icnofossil of an ootheca, coming from the paleontological site of Palena. Its morphological and dimensional characteristics do not match with the oothecae of modern Teleostei correlated with the fossil fishes from the same paleontological site. Therefore, the Authors compared this fossil ootheca with the ones of ext...
The authors describe an hemimandible attributable to Alectrosaurus sp., which shows evident traces of aging in a member of the Family Tyrannosauridae. The examination of the specimen reveals incipient osteoporosis and dental wear. Moreover the radiograph shows that in our mandible there are no replacement tooth buds. It demonstrate that Tyrannosaur...
Charged by the Pope Julius II for painting the Cappella Sistina in Rome (between 1508 and 1512), Michelangelo worked in an elevated scaffolding, in an anomalous position with dyes (including poisoning lead salts) and solvents (such as toxic turpentine) dripping on his face and continuously inhaling, in a dim environment illuminated only with oil la...
The authors describe the characteristics of the large outbreak of typhoid fever in Civitella del Tronto (Italy) in the year 1817. As reported in the "Rapporti Periodici sulla Salute Pubblica" ("Public Health Reports") periodically written by general practitioners, from March to June 1817 the morbidity rate was over 1% and both genders were equally...
The University Museum of Chieti is carrying on an intense activity in various anthropological fields. The active sectors include: (i) establishing and increasing osteological collections, (ii) researching in the Biology, Biomechanics and Paleopathology of ancient human remains and (iii) disclosing the achieved results, finally (iv) developing conse...
The authors describe a very rare case of osteoarthritis in a cervical vertebra of a cretaceous dinosaur (Spinosaurus maroccanus). Besides it is one of the most ancient case of osteoarthritis published up today. The fossil record was studied through macroscopic and radiographic analyses and computed tomography scan.
Sex determination of subadult skeletal remains with satisfactory accuracy represents one of the most important limitations of archaeological research and forensic practice. Teeth are one of the most durable physical elements of an individual that remain after death, and constitute a potential source of information about the biological sex of that i...
This paper describes the historical succession of plague epidemics in the Italian region of Abruzzi. For the first time, and using original and unpublished documents, the Authors reconstruct the historical sequence of plague epidemics in Abruzzi from 1357 to 1702. Describing the epidemiology of plague, both in the local context of Abruzzi and the g...
Brucellosis is a worldwide disease. Although it has been eradicated in some countries, it continues to be an important disease in many farming areas. Previous works have described the evolution and diffusion of brucellosis in antiquity through direct analysis of ancient human remains collected by the University Museum of Chieti, Italy, and by using...
Osteosclerosis, or inner bone compaction, and pachyostosis, or outer hyperplasy of bone cortices (swollen bones), are typical
features of tetrapods secondarily adapted to life in water. These peculiarities are spectacularly exemplified by the ribs
of extant and extinct Sirenia. Sea cows are thus the best model for studying this kind of bone structu...
The size and shape of the jaws are related to occlusion and masticatory muscle function. Consequently, teeth and muscles are considered the functional matrix for the two jaws. Existing studies did not focus on the relationship between maxillary and mandibular base but on just their absolute dimensions. As the relationship between the two is of inte...
We report on the paleopathological analysis of the partial skeleton of the late Pliocene hominin species Australopithecus africanus Stw 431 from Sterkfontein, South Africa. A previous study noted the presence of lesions on vertebral bodies diagnosed as spondylosis deformans due to trauma. Instead, we suggest that these lesions are pathological chan...
Authors describe a hyoid bone body, without horns, attributed to Homo erectus from Castel di Guido (Rome, Italy), dated to about 400,000 years BP. The hyoid bone body shows the bar-shaped morphology characteristic of Homo, in contrast to the bulla-shaped body morphology of African apes and Australopithecus. Its measurements differ from those of the...
The author describes weapon traumatic lesions in an adult male skeleton, that was excavated in the Italic necropolis of Opi Val Fondillo, Central Italy. The preservation of the skeleton is very good. The skull shows a linear lesion across the diploE of the right parietal and occipital bones; the edge of the traumatic lesion is smooth and perpendicu...
The perfect preservation of objects, including food items, found in the houses of the Roman town of Herculaneum provides a unique perspective on the relationship between the state of health and nutrition in Roman times. The link between epizoonosis and the use of goat cheese has already been demonstrated. In this study, we show that other foods wer...
The authors review basic basic information of transverse lines of increased density, also called Harris lines, visible radiographically in the bones of some subjects as a consequence of generalized illnesses or stresses suffered during childhood. They reflect episodes of delayed or arrested development of the longitudinal growth of the bone. These...
Disc herniation seems to be typical pathology of modern man, due to erect posture. However, the authors identified several cases of vertebral herniation in quadrupedal mammals (cave bears and modern dogs), and they hypothesize the existence of other causes of this pathological condition, not necessary linked to erect posture.
The authors describe a very rare case of osteoarthritis in a cervical vertebra of a cretaceous dinosaur (Spinosaurus maroccanus). Besides it is one of the most ancient case of osteoarthritis published up today. The fossil record was studied through macroscopic and radiographic analyses and computed tomography scan.
At seaside Herculaneum, in the earlier night hours of August 25, 79 AD, the first pyroclastic surge of the famous eruption of Mount Vesuvius caught at least part of the refugees on the beach. A minimum of 250 human skeletons, entombed in the first sandwave surge bed, were unearthed since 1980, mostly crowded in a series of 12 boat chambers. Because...
The anthropologic examination of the human skeletal remains recovered on the ancient beach of Herculaneum provides a unique opportunity for gaining paleobiological data on a Roman population. The eruption caught the people on the ancient beach as they were trying to escape; the volcanic surges and pyroclastic flows had different effects on them dep...
The discovery of the Man from Similaun is one of the main archaeological events of the century. The paper gives a palethnological and anthropological synthesis as well as the history and the peculiar circumstances of the discovery. Furthermore it gives a analysis of the archaelogical, palaeontological and botanic remains useful to the definition of...
The discovery of the Man from Similaun is one of the mam archaeological events of the century. The paper gives a palethnological and anthropological synthesis as well as the history and the peculiar circumstances of the discovery. Furthermore it gives a analysis of the archaelogical, palaeontological and botanic remains useful to the definition of...
The hairpiece worn by a young woman identified as E52, who was smothered by the layer of a hot mud deposited in the course of the 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius oxidized rapidly, impregnating the surrounding hair with iron salts. Thus, a lock of hair was preserved close to her skull. The examination of the hair revealed the presence of a louse eg...
