ArchaeoBlog

Hawks comments on a recent story:

I think it’s useful to keep in mind that the qualities of food that loom important for us now, in an age of rapid transcontinental refrigerated food transportation, are not the same qualities that mattered to the first agriculturalists. Five thousand years ago, people needed food products that could be stored through the lean season, that made harvesting the plants easier, and that resisted the insults of bad weather and pathogens. Robinson focuses attention on the developments of the last hundred years, in which some crop varieties have been selected for much higher sugar content, but the long history of domestication before these recent events has also shaped the taste and nutrient content of foods.

I don’t go along too far with the conclusions expressed in the article either. We really know very little about ancient HG health primarily because they didn’t bury their dead in nice, neat cemeteries whence we can get reasonable population data.

I went into this in an earlier post(s), but found this paper while doing some background reading on HPV-related items. A number of studies have shown that circumcision reduces the transmission of HIV, but does it reduce other infectious diseases as well? Maybe:

Circumcision Cuts HPV Risk for Both Sexes

Male circumcision can reduce the risk that female partners will acquire human papillomavirus (HPV), researchers reported.

Women in two large trials of circumcision had a lower incidence and prevalence of HPV if their partners got the procedure, according to Aaron Tobian, MD, of Johns Hopkins University, and colleagues.

Summary and some comments below the fold. . . .

Here’s the summary:

Background Randomised trials show that male circumcision reduces the prevalence and incidence of high-risk human
papillomavirus (HPV) infection in men. We assessed the effi cacy of male circumcision to reduce prevalence and
incidence of high-risk HPV in female partners of circumcised men.

Methods In two parallel but independent randomised controlled trials of male circumcision, we enrolled HIV-negative
men and their female partners between 2003 and 2006, in Rakai, Uganda. With a computer-generated random
number sequence in blocks of 20, men were assigned to undergo circumcision immediately (intervention) or after
24 months (control). HIV-uninfected female partners (648 of men from the intervention group, and 597 of men in the
control group) were simultaneously enrolled and provided interview information and self-collected vaginal swabs at
baseline, 12 months, and 24 months. Vaginal swabs were tested for high-risk HPV by Roche HPV Linear Array.
Female HPV infection was a secondary endpoint of the trials, assessed as the prevalence of high-risk HPV infection
24 months after intervention and the incidence of new infections during the trial. Analysis was by intention-to-treat.
An as-treated analysis was also done to account for study-group crossovers. The trials were registered,
numbers NCT00425984 and NCT00124878.

Findings During the trial, 18 men in the control group underwent circumcision elsewhere, and 31 in the intervention
group did not undergo circumcision. At 24-month follow-up, data were available for 544 women in the intervention
group and 488 in the control group; 151 (27·8%) women in the intervention group and 189 (38·7%) in the control
group had high-risk HPV infection (prevalence risk ratio=0·72, 95% CI 0·60–0·85, p=0·001). During the trial,
incidence of high-risk HPV infection in women was lower in the intervention group than in the control group
(20·7 infections vs 26·9 infections per 100 person-years; incidence rate ratio=0·77, 0·63–0·93, p=0·008).

Interpretation Our findings indicate that male circumcision should now be accepted as an efficacious intervention for
reducing the prevalence and incidence of HPV infections in female partners. However, protection is only partial; the
promotion of safe sex practices is also important.

They say it’s only “partial” because it only reduced transmission by a fairly modest amount. It’s a practice that seems to be fairly common throughout history, though at times it’s tough to determine whether what is being referred to is really “circumcision” or just some sort of ritual scarring or the like. But the selectionist argument that it provides some benefit and is thus fixed in certain populations has been largely based on the supposed health effects for the male and now also the female — which may end up being the key. Remember, you don’t need people to necessarily be aware of the benefits (though they certainly could be) but just that the results of said behavior are greater reproductive fitness which may well be the case if it is protecting the bearer of children from debilitating infections.

The governors of Ancient Egypt suffered from malnutrition and infectious diseases, dying before they were 30 years old

The ancient Egyptians did not live in such good conditions and were not surrounded by such opulence as was thought up to now, but, rather, suffered from hunger and malnutrition, a whole range of infectious diseases and an extremely high infant mortality rate. Furthermore, the governors of Aswan, on the border with Sudan, as well as their families, interbred with the black peoples of the neighbouring country.

These are some of the conclusions drawn from the Qubbet el-Hawa research project, carried out by the University of Jaen, in which anthropologists from the University of Granada have participated, as well as the Supreme Council of Antiquities of the Arab Republic of Egypt.

There’s not a whole lot there in terms of what the specific health problems were except for this cryptic sentence: “This is revealed by the fact that the bones of the children had no marks on them, “which demonstrates that they died from some serious infectious disease”. One supposes they simply mean (apparently non-native English speakers) that it wasn’t an accidental traumatic death, since there could be any number of “marks” on bones that could indicate various diseases. But it seems like a fairy typical population with low life expectancy and high infant mortality (which are, of course, related).

Via Nigel H..

Urban Byzantine monks gave in to temptation

WHO ate all the pies? In 6th-century Jerusalem, the Byzantine monks were greedy gobblers – despite strict rules that they should eat mainly bread and water.

Most early Byzantine monasteries were located in remote deserts, but St Stephen’s monastery thrived in Jerusalem. Wondering how urban living affected the monks, Lesley Gregoricka at the University of South Alabama in Mobile took bone samples from 55 skeletons buried under the monastery.

There’s a paper on it but I haven’t read it yet (I should). I’m not sure what the exact rules were regarding dietary restrictions, but I kind of doubt any diet based solely on bread and water would have lasted very long as everybody would have been dying of malnutrition.

Burning Question: Air Blowers or Paper Towels?

In June, the Mayo Clinic published a comprehensive study of every known hand-washing study done since 1970. The authors concluded that drying skin is essential to staving off bacteria, and that paper towels are superior to driers: They’re more efficient, they don’t spatter germs, they won’t dry out hands and most people prefer them. Dr. Thompson’s study was one of the dozen samples reviewed, and he concurs with the recent findings.

There are a number of problems with the whole handwashing thing to begin with. Unless the faucet is an auto-on one, you have to touch the handle to turn it off, thus potentially contaminating the hands you’ve just washed. Ditto manual towel dispensers. I suppose the best-designed bathroom facility would be one with automatic faucets, automatic soap dispensers, auto-dispensing towels, and no door or a push-open door. OTOH, when one is out in the field in the cold, boy, those blowers sure are nice. . .

What’s the difference between chemists and biologists? Chemists wash their hands before, biologists after.