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Cerebral tissues in human remains are rare archaeological discoveries. These tissues are typically saponified, meaning that their triglycerides have been converted to glycerol and fatty acid salts, or soap. In c.e. 79, a volcanic hot ash avalanche rapidly killed the inhabitants of Pompeii and Herculaneum. In the 1960s, at the Collegium Augustalium in Herculaneum, a human victim of the avalanche was found lying on a wooden bed, buried by volcanic ash. In this victim’s skull, we discovered apparent brain remains that were vitrified instead of saponified.

OBJECTIVES We conducted a systematic macroscopic and microscopic examination of occlusal and para-occlusal wear in a large dental sample (n = 3,014) from 217 individuals dated to the Early Bronze age site of Gricignano d'Aversa, Italy. We used macroscopic and microscopic techniques to document nondietary occlusal and para-occlusal wear and to analyze calculus inclusions in some of the teeth. In combining an analysis of the wear with the calculus inclusions we linked the specific wear to the likely fiber that was involved in producing it. MATERIALS AND METHODS Teeth and their high resolution epoxy casts were analyzed through SEM and reflected light microscopes. Nineteen individuals (fifteen with activity induced dental modifications and four as a control sample) were examined for the presence of calculus inclusions. RESULTS Activity induced dental modifications (AIDMs), notches, grooves and micro-striations, were found in the 62.2% of the adult females, in 21.2% of the adults of unknown sex and in a single male. We found the full spectrum of dental manipulations from very minor nonocclusal wear in some young individuals to severe attrition at the other extreme. The width of the striations and grooves, mostly on the upper incisors, suggests a craft activity involving fibers and thread production and manipulation. From the dental calculus of two females with grooves and striations, we extracted three fragments of fibers, identified as hemp (Cannabis, sp.). Previously from Gricignano woven hemp fibers were found on both surfaces of a metal blade associated with a male burial. DISCUSSION This study found the co-occurrence of tooth AIDMs and the actual fibers preserved in the dental calculus. As more work is done analyzing dental calculus in a variety of humans, it is apparent that this biological material holds rich resources documenting non-dietary habits.

The scientific study of the victims of the 79 AD Vesuvius eruption began with the first discovery in the 1980s of hundreds of skeletons of people who had taken refuge in the suburban area of Herculaneum. Hundreds of human victims were found crowding the beach and a series of waterfront chambers, fixated into a final posture by the first of the deadly incoming pyroclastic currents. The towns of Herculaneum, Pompeii and other Roman settlements up to 20 kilometers away were suddenly hit and overwhelmed by successive ash-avalanches, fast moving clouds of hot volcanic ash and gases known as pyroclastic surges, capable of killing all residents who were not yet evacuated. Given the impossibility of access to the skeletal remains of the Pompeiians locked within the plaster casts and the sparse occasional finds of victims elsewhere, most of the anthropological studies focused on the victims discovered in Herculaneum. The first investigations were carried out to detect the biological and pathological features of these people. More recent multidisciplinary studies on the victims' skeletons and their volcanological context shed light on the dynamic impacts of the 79 AD Plinian eruption on the area around the volcano and on its inhabitants. The effects of the high temperatures of the surges as suffered by the remaining resident population were revealed, with crucial implications for the present-day risk of a similar outcome to around three million people living close to the volcano, including metropolitan Naples.

Background: Endemic fluorosis induced by high concentrations of fluoride in groundwater and soils is a major health problem in several countries, particularly in volcanic areas.Aim: To evaluate the occurrence of dental fluorosis resulting from exposure to high levels of environmental fluoride in 79 AD Herculaneum and close Vesuvius towns.Subjects and methods: The occurrence of dental fluorosis from teeth of the Herculaneum victims of the 79 AD eruption and some individuals from Pompeii (14-37 AD) and Nocera Inferiore (Salerno, IV sec. AD) was detected by means of Particle Induced Gamma-ray Emission technique (PIGE).Results: A clinical and analytical scenario of dental fluorosis resulted from the extreme high fluorine tooth content detected in teeth from Herculaneum and the Vesuvius area inhabitants. The adoption of PIGE technique has proved to be particularly effective in showing moderate as well as milder forms of dental fluorosis, otherwise not clearly detectable by clinical and histological analysis.Conclusions: Morphological, histological and elemental analysis of teeth of the 79 AD Herculaneum population show that in this area fluorosis occurred since Roman times.

In AD 79 the town of Herculaneum was suddenly hit and overwhelmed by volcanic ash-avalanches that killed all its remaining residents, as also occurred in Pompeii and other settlements as far as 20 kilometers from Vesuvius. New investigations on the victims' skeletons unearthed from the ash deposit filling 12 waterfront chambers have now revealed widespread preservation of atypical red and black mineral residues encrusting the bones, which also impregnate the ash filling the intracranial cavity and the ash-bed encasing the skeletons. Here we show the unique detection of large amounts of iron and iron oxides from such residues, as revealed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and Raman microspectroscopy, thought to be the final products of heme iron upon thermal decomposition. The extraordinarily rare preservation of significant putative evidence of hemoprotein thermal degradation from the eruption victims strongly suggests the rapid vaporization of body fluids and soft tissues of people at death due to exposure to extreme heat.

BackgroundThe study of ancient skeletal pathologies can be adopted as a key tool in assessing and tracing several diseases from past to present times. Skeletal fluorosis, a chronic metabolic bone and joint disease causing excessive ossification and joint ankylosis, has been only rarely considered in differential diagnoses of palaeopathological lesions. Even today its early stages are misdiagnosed in endemic areas.Methodology/principal findingsEndemic fluorosis induced by high concentrations of fluoride in water and soils is a major health problem in several countries, particularly in volcanic areas. Here we describe for the first time the features of endemic fluorosis in the Herculaneum victims of the 79 AD eruption, resulting from long-term exposure to high levels of environmental fluoride which still occur today.Conclusions/significanceOur observations on morphological, radiological, histological and chemical skeletal and dental features of this ancient population now suggest that in this area fluorosis was already endemic in Roman times. This evidence merged with currently available epidemiologic data reveal for the Vesuvius area population a permanent fluoride health hazard, whose public health and socio-economic impact is currently underestimated. The present guidelines for fluoridated tap water might be reconsidered accordingly, particularly around Mt Vesuvius and in other fluoride hazard areas with high natural fluoride levels.

The eruption's first surge instantly killed some people sheltering from the impact. The town of Herculaneum, lying at the foot of Mount Vesuvius on a cliff overlooking the sea, was buried by a succession of pyroclastic surges and flows (currents of volcanic ash and hot gases generated by collapse of the eruptive column) during the plinian eruption of ad 79. The skeletons of 80 of 300 people who had taken refuge in 12 boat chambers along the beach have now been unearthed from the first surge deposit. We have investigated how these people were killed by this surge, despite being sheltered from direct impact, after its abrupt collapse (emplacement) at about 500 °C on the beach. The victims' postures indicate that they died instantly, suggesting that the cause of death was thermally induced fulminant shock1 and not suffocation, which is believed to have killed many of the inhabitants of Pompeii and of Herculaneum itself.

BackgroundThe evaluation of mortality of pyroclastic surges and flows (PDCs) produced by explosive eruptions is a major goal in risk assessment and mitigation, particularly in distal reaches of flows that are often heavily urbanized. Pompeii and the nearby archaeological sites preserve the most complete set of evidence of the 79 AD catastrophic eruption recording its effects on structures and people.Methodology/principal findingsHere we investigate the causes of mortality in PDCs at Pompeii and surroundings on the bases of a multidisciplinary volcanological and bio-anthropological study. Field and laboratory study of the eruption products and victims merged with numerical simulations and experiments indicate that heat was the main cause of death of people, heretofore supposed to have died by ash suffocation. Our results show that exposure to at least 250 degrees C hot surges at a distance of 10 kilometres from the vent was sufficient to cause instant death, even if people were sheltered within buildings. Despite the fact that impact force and exposure time to dusty gas declined toward PDCs periphery up to the survival conditions, lethal temperatures were maintained up to the PDCs extreme depositional limits.Conclusions/significanceThis evidence indicates that the risk in flow marginal zones could be underestimated by simply assuming that very thin distal deposits, resulting from PDCs with poor total particle load, correspond to negligible effects. Therefore our findings are essential for hazard plans development and for actions aimed to risk mitigation at Vesuvius and other explosive volcanoes.

Origin of disease has special interest for rheumatologists, for whom absence of etiologic information generally mandates empirical approaches. Hypotheses have been offered that rheumatoid arthritis and syphilis were New World diseases, only transmitted to the Old World subsequent to the passages of Christopher Columbus (1-7). The pertinent search is for polyarticular erosive disease, sparing axial joints (8-10) and for oligostotic or polyostotic periosteal reaction (3, 4). The phenomenon of interest is not the focal periosteal reaction that occurs secondary to trauma (9, 10), but rather the more diffuse reaction indicative of pres- “Like a virgin”: Absence of rheumatoid arthritis and treponematosis, good sanitation and only rare gout in Italy prior to the 15th century “Come una vergine”: in Italia, niente artrite reumatoide o sifilide, solo poca gotta, e buona sanità prima del XV secolo BM. Rothschild1, A. Coppa2, PP. Petrone3 1Arthritis Center of Northeast Ohio, Youngstown, OH; Department of Internal Medicine, Northeast Ohio Universities College of Medicine, Rootstown, OH; Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Akron, Akron, OH; Department of Earth Sciences, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, PA; 2Dipartimento di Biologia Animale e dell'Uomo, Sede di Antropologia, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, Roma; 3Museo di Antropologia, Centro Musei di Scienze Naturali, Università di Napoli “Federico II”, Napoli RUBRICA LA REUMATOLOGIA NELLA LETTERATURA… Reumatismo, 2004; 56(1):61-66 Reumatismo, 2004; 56(1):61-66 RIASSUNTO Obiettivi: Lo studio è stato condotto con lo scopo di compiere alcune valutazioni e di verificare, anche indirettamente, una serie di ipotesi: 1. che l’artrite reumatoide e la sifilide siano malattie originate nelle Americhe e che siano state trasmesse nel Vecchio Continente successivamente ai viaggi di Cristoforo Colombo; 2. che l’intossicazione da piombo, causa di iperuricemia e quindi di gotta, fosse frequente ai tempi dell’antica Roma; 3. valutare lo stato di salute pubblica in Italia prima del XV secolo, attraverso la stima della prevalenza delle spondiloartriti; 4. valutare la frequenza dei traumi ossei nell’Italia antica, grazie all’analisi dei fenomeni di reazione periosteale focale. Metodi: Gli scheletri provenienti da diversi siti archeologici di epoca diversa (età del bronzo/peste del 1485-86) sono stati esaminati macroscopicamente per documentare segni di reazione periosteale focale e caratteristiche peculiari di artrite reumatoide, gotta, spondiloartriti e treponematosi ossea. Risultati: L’esame di 688 campioni ha rivelato una bassa frequenza di reazione periosteale con distribuzione focale (perlomeno nel periodo compreso fra 3400-700 anni fa), con una brusca impennata nel XV secolo. Una reazione periosteale di tipo diffuso è stata messa in evidenza solo in singoli soggetti con un quadro isolato di osteoartropatia ipertrofica. Le erosioni ossee sono risultate poco frequenti e sempre con distribuzione oligo-articolare. Non si sono osservate erosioni marginali, a parte un unico caso, a livello metatarsale, con le caratteristiche tipiche della gotta. Erosioni subcondrali, fusione di articolazioni periferiche e coinvolgimento dello scheletro assiale suggestive di spondiloartrite sono state rilevate nell’1-3% dei campioni esaminati, indipendemente dalla datazione del sito archeologico. Conclusioni: L’Italia, prima di Cristoforo Colombo, si presentava “come una vergine”. Malattie come artrite reumatoide ed infezioni da treponema (in particolare sifilide) non sarebbero state presenti, fornendo così un’ulteriore prova che si tratta di forme morbose originarie delle Americhe. Segni di reazione periosteale dovuta a traumi minori erano rare prima del XV secolo, ovvero ai tempi dell’epidemia di peste del 1485-86. Ciò suggerisce il ruolo potenziale di attività domestiche, piuttosto che di quelle esterne, nello sviluppo di questo particolare tipo di lesione. L’ipotesi di un ruolo dell’intossicazione da piombo come cofattore causale nel declino dell’impero romano appare poco probabile, data la rarità dei casi di gotta osservati. La frequenza di spondiloartriti è risultata ridotta rispetto a quella che si osserva su popolazioni in precarie condizioni igienico-sanitarie, lasciandoci così intuire buoni standard di salute pubblica nell’Italia di quei tempi. Indirizzo per la corrispondenza: Prof. Dr. Bruce M. Rothschild The Arthritis Center of Northeast Ohio, 5500 Market Street, Youngstown, OH 44512 e-mail: bmr@neoucom.edu ence of a systemic disease (e.g., treponemal or hypertrophic osteoarthropathy) (9-11). Four thousand years of Italian cemeteries provide fertile ground to assess those hypotheses.