Probable evidence of scurvy in subadults from archeological sites in Peru

Subadult scurvy is not well documented in archeological human remains despi te the existence of many biomedical references indicating that bone changes do occur in some cases and, because of this, should be observable in human burials. There are several potential reasons for this gap in our knowledge of scurvy. Not all children who suffered from scurvy died of the disease o r from other causes when they had scurvy Scurvy may not leave characteristi c bone changes in every case of the disease. Some of the pathological condi tions associated with scurvy have been known for many years, but these feat ures may be rare or difficult to differentiate from other pathological cond itions. Recently a lesion of the skull has been described (Ortner and Erick sen [1997] International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 7:212-220) that is pro bably pathognomonic for scurvy specifically porous and sometimes hypertroph ic lesions of the greater wing of the sphenoid, This lesion is bilateral an d highly associated with evidence of inflammation at other anatomical sites in the skull. A survey of subadult skulls (N = 363) in the human skeletal collection from Peru at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, reveals a prevalence of 10% of skulls that exhibit plausible evidence of scurvy. Some cases of scurvy also have cribra orbitalia that ha s been attributed to anemia. In most BE the Peruvian scurvy cases, anemia i s an unlikely possibility because there is no evidence of marrow hyperplasi a. This highlights the need for caution in using lesions of the orbit as an indicator of anemia when there is no other evidence of this disease elsewh ere in the skeleton. Anatomical evidence of scurvy offers the potential of providing new and important evidence of diet in archeological human populat ions. (C) 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.