Theme:
6. Contested Pasts & Presents
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Pathogenic Disease in the Past
Content:
Diseases and epidemics have ravaged human populations for millennia. How we identify those who suffered from communicable diseases ranges across several methods, and often these can be combined to produce a more nuanced differential diagnosis. Commonly used methods include consulting historic documents that detail symptoms and their descriptions, paleopathological assessments of skeletal remains, and metagenomic screening for the presence of pathogenic bacteria or viruses. More recently, studies of bone and dentine proteomes are attempting to discover immunological biomarkers of specific illnesses, however this method is still in its infancy. This session aims to bring together those who utilize these methods, and others not mentioned above, to investigate disease and to improve our understanding of health states in past populations. Through presentations of published and ongoing studies, combined with fruitful discussions of the future of ancient diseases research, we aim to develop a strong, supportive working group of researchers within the discipline.
Keywords:
Pathogen, Disease, aDNA, Pathology, Proteins
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Shevan Wilkin (Switzerland) 1
Co-organisers:
Kerttu Majander (Austria) 2
Affiliations:
1. Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich
2. University of Vienna
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