Neolithic Europeans suffered from Leukemia

Angela

Elite member
Messages
21,823
Reaction score
12,327
Points
113
Ethnic group
Italian
One of the Stuttgart Neolithic skeletons shows signs of leukemia:
http://www.archaeology.org/news/3661-150903-oldest-case-leukemia2

"FRANKFURT, GERMANY—Scientists from the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment and the University of Tübingen have examined the 7,000-year-old skeleton of a woman who died between the ages of 30 and 40 and determined that she suffered from leukemia. “We examined several bones of the skeleton with our high-resolution computed tomography system, and we found an unusual loosening of the interior bone tissue—the cancellous bone—in the upper right humerus and the sternum,” Heike Scherf of the Senckenberg Center said in a press release. Blood-forming stem cells are located at the ends of these bones, and at the ends of the vertebrae, ribs, skull, and pelvis, and so blood cancer can occur at these locations. Other diseases, including osteoporosis and hyperparathyroidism, which cause similar bone damage, were ruled out. None of the other ten individuals in the study, all buried in the Neolithic graveyard of Stuttgart-Mühlhausen, showed signs of this cancer. “However, we cannot determine whether the woman actually died from the disease,” Scherf added. For more, go to "Ancient Oncology."

Poor thing.

There's still very little they can do about this.
 
Interesting. So it seems that what we think are modern diseases such as Cancer and heart disease happen to be also present in ancient peoples. Probably, understandably, because of ignorance and lack of knowledge they would have thought they were possessed by some demon or some god sent the disease for some sins they are not aware of. Even Otzi was found to have some medical conditions which are common these days.
 
All the deceases were present. We see more of them because we live much longer, giving hem chance to show up. Most people in the past died due to starvation, infection and being killed. Fortunately nowdays we have social assistance, more food than we can eat, antibiotics, bar of soap and NATO.
 
they probably even didn't know she had a disease
I'm sure there were many more diseases back then that don't exist any more today because these diseases, or the carriers of them got extinct
now diseases can survive with medication, therapy or other treatments, but future generations will become addicted to these medications and therapies
 

This thread has been viewed 3486 times.

Back
Top