Health conditions before Columbus: paleopathology of native North Americans.

Homo erectus is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago.

Information about the health status of the earliest inhabitants of North America provides a chronology of health problems that spans more than a thousand years. Studies of disease in ancient times add an important dimension to our understanding of the life struggles of a largely unknown past. In this article, we provide a brief overview of health conditions and quality of life in North America before contact and colonization.

Data on health in ancient societies are inferred from the analysis of a wide range of archaeologic materials, but human bones and teeth form by far the largest body of evidence. For several regions in the United States, there are health chronologies spanning hundreds of years. For example, Walker, using a multimethod approach involving the analysis of skeletal lesions and detailed reconstruction of the environment, demonstrated that Indians of southern California who lived in marginal island environments (about 800 BC to AD 1150) showed greater evidence of health problems than those who lived on the mainland, where food was more abundant and diverse.1 He also showed increased rates of infectious diseases over time.

There has been a shift toward conducting population-level analyses that shed light on epidemiologic characteristics of the health of ancient societies by providing frequencies and patterning of disease within and between populations.2 

EUROPEAN INVADERS MUST BE EXPELLED FROM LEGAL ELOHIM KIMGSHIP GOVERNMENT.  JURISDICTION, CINCE 445,000 YEARS AGO.