It is our purpose to provide a compendium of the diseases and other health related conditions that affected the people at Crow Creek. The importance of this project is that the villagers lived in A.D. 1350, about 100 years before Columbus came to America. The findings can be a measure of their health and well being before the coming of the Whites. Contrary to commonly held public opinion, the difference between what existed in Europe and what existed in America at that time, was not great.

Except cephalo-pelvic disproportion, evidence of Ob-Gyn disease is not in old skeletons. At Crow Creek pelvic disproportion was not found.

In primitive cultures past and present the most frequent causes of disability and death are infections, nutritional disturbances, trauma, and obstetrical, neonatal problems. Respiratory disease, gastrointestinal, and urinary tract infections had formidable potential to cause death, especially in young children. About 50% of the population died before their first birthday. To this was added the possibility of parasitic infestations, which lowered their resistance to infections. Most of the diseases involved soft tissue and did not cause changes in bone.

Often more than one process involved the skeleton, or a portion of it. To compensate for duplications in pathology, whenever one was encountered the reader is referred to the appropriate section. The diseases found will be considered in the following categories:

• Congenital and developmental. Limited, regional, corporeal.
• Degenerative Processes: Traumatic, degenerative; Senile, nutritional, of dis-use; Arthritis involving a joint.
• Dental Diseases. Caries; Dental wear, attrition; Tooth loss; Tooth abnormality.
• Infectious and inflammatory.
• Metabolic and nutritional.
• Ob/Gyn. Problems, mostly soft tissue diseases: Pelvic disproportion; Anything impeding the birth process. No ob/gyn diseases found in the Crow Creek site.
• Traumatic: Antemortem; paramortem.
• Tumors: Malignant (cancer), benign.

CONCLUSIONS

What has been learned from investigation of Crow Creek.

The skeleton sans soft tissue hides many secrets, not known to the person represented, or his contemporaries. The mission of the paleo pathologist is to sort out the secrets and relate them to the individual, his culture, and their descendents.

Neither the Native Americans nor those interested in the development of this country are clear in their thoughts as to an equitable approach to the old human remains. Land is an increasingly precious commodity for highways and other developments that will continue to be envisioned. It is obvious that territory used by previous cultures will increasingly be coveted, pressuring the participants even more.

Perhaps the time is ripe to negotiate terms that can be acceptable to the most of the involved. Unless guidelines relating to acquisition and disposition of human remnains is reached, the impasse will become a festering wound.

The pragmatic approach to this matter is that some health problems in the regional Native Americans differ from those of the general population today. And, they did in the past, but the differences in disease prevalence is not as great as had been thought before the Crow Creek skeletons were found. The greatest difference in health problems in A.D. 1350 (+/- forty years), was in the absence of the herd type diseases, smallpox, cholera, measles, etc., none of which leave traces in bone.

Research into past generations should make possible discovery of factors promoting the differences. This can bring newer and better methods of treatment, and hopefully more successful prevention of these problems.

Knowledge of the past fosters treatment in the present.

JB and PS Gregg

1. Adams M, and Niswander J: Health of the American Indians: Congenital defects. Eugenics Quart 1968;15:227.
2. Berndorfer A: A 500-year-old skull with cleft lip. Brit J Plast Surg 1962;15:123.
3. Brooks S, Hohenthal W: Archaeological defective palate crania from California. Am J Phys Anthrop 1963;21:25.
4. Brothwell DR, Powers R: Congenital malformations of the skeleton in earlier man. [in] Skeletal biology of earlier human populations. Symposia of Society for Study of Human Biology. Brothwell D [ed]. Elmsford NJ, Pergamon Press, 1968.
5. Gilkey F: Cleft lip and palate in paleopathological material. Paleopathology Newsletter No. 24 1978:8.
6. Green H, Nelson C, Gaylor D, Holson J: Accuracy of birth certificate data for detecting facial cleft defects in Arkansas. Cleft Palate J 1979;16:167.
7. Hrdlicka A: Physiological and medical observations among the Indians of southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Washington, D.C. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of Ethnology, Bull. 3-4, 1908.
8. Manchester K: The archaeology of disease. Bradford, England, University of Bradford Press, 1983.
9. Ortner D, Putschar W: Identification of pathological conditions in human skeletal remains. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology No. 28. Washington, D.C. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981.
10. Sullivan N: Cleft palate. 1979 symposium. Paleopath Newsletter No. 26. 1979:3.
11. Skoog T: A head from ancient Corinth. Scand J Plast Reconst Surg 1969;3:16.
12. Thomas P, Campbell J, Ahler S: The Hanna Site; An Alto Focus village in Red River Parish. New World Research Report of Investigations No. 3. New Orleans, US Army Corps of Engineers, 1977.
13. Tretsven V: Incidence of cleft lip and palate in Montana Indians. J Speech Hear Disorders 1963;28:52.
14. Tupper B, Gregg J, Clifford S: Are cleft palate and cleft lip increasing in South Dakota, especially among the Indians? SD Speech Hear Assoc J 1964;7:11.
15. Ubelaker D: Human skeletal remains, excavation, analysis, interpretation. Chicago, Aldine Publishing Co, 1978.

Paleopathology Resources

University of Iowa Anthropology