The evidence for tuberculosis in the Eastern Mediterranean:past and current research and future prospects

Abstract

A celebration of Patricia Smith’s distinguished career, the papers presented in this Festschrift focus on a region and research topics that have fascinated and challenged her since her student days. The broad intellectual and geographic range covered by the papers offers a wealth of information and insights into the biology of past and present populations of the Eastern Mediterranean, a region rich in history and human diversity. Contents: 1) The future of physical anthropology (Phillip L. Walker); 2) Dental development and life history in primates and a comparison of cuspal enamel growth trajectories in a specimen of homo erectus from Java (Sangiran s7-37), a Neanderthal (Tabun c1), and an early homo sapiens specimen (Skhul ii), from Israel (M. Christopher Dean); 3) Were there Neanderthals in the Levant? (Silvana Condemi); 4) Dental development and pathology from the Levantine Middle Palaeolithic: evidence from the Kebara and Qafzeh hominids (Anne-Marie Tillier ); 5) Tooth components in archaic homo sapiens/Neanderthal specimens from Israel and their taxonomic affiliation (Uri Zilberman); 6) Dental attrition: Neanderthals, Romans and Egyptians, and the question of where we go now (Don Brothwell); 7) A final Natufian population: health and burial status at Eynan-Mallaha (Fanny Bocquentin); 8) Morbidity and mortality in the late PPNB populations from Basta and Ba'ja (Jordan) (Michael Schultz, Tyede H. Schmidt-Schultz, Julia Gresky, Kerstin Kreutz, Margit Berner); 9) “What ceremony else?” Taphonomy and the ritual treatment of the dead in the pre-pottery Neolithic b mortuary complex at Kfar Hahoresh, Israel (Tal Simmons, Nigel Goring-Morris and Liora Kolska Horwitz); 10) Is house 12 at Bouqras a charnel house? (Deborah C. Merrett and Christopher Meiklejohn); 11) Times of stress at Çatalhöyük (Theya Molleson); 13) Artificial cranial deformation in the aceramic Neolithic Near East: evidence from Cyprus (Françoise Le Mort); 14) A retrospective view of cauterization: evidence from Anatolia (Metin Özbek); 15) Inter-group variation in long bone morphology: an osteometric and radiological study of past populations of Israel (Leonor Dujovny); 16) Human remains from the Nahal Tzeelim Cave, the Dead Sea area (Baruch Arensburg); 17) The EB IA burials of Bâb Edh-Dhrâ, Jordan: bioarchaeological evidence of metabolic disease (Donald J. Ortner, Evan M. Garofalo, Molly K. Zuckerman); A Roman-Byzantine population from Ghiv'at Shappira, Jerusalem (Israel) (Baruch Arensburg and Anna Belfer-Cohen); 18) Challenges in the study of health and disease in the Crusaders (Piers D. Mitchell); 19) The evidence for tuberculosis in the eastern Mediterranean: past and current research, and future prospects (Charlotte Roberts and Jane Buikstra); 20) The emergence of the zoonotic pathogens in the southern Levant (Gila Kahila Bar-Gal and Charles L. Greenblatt); 21) Bones, teeth and ancient DNA unravel major issues in Levantine bio-history (Israel Hershkovitz and Mark Spigelman); 22) From physical anthropology to molecular genetics: studies of Israeli populations in the 20th century (Batsheva Bonne-Tamir); 23) The genetic history of populations in the southern levant as revealed by y chromosome polymorphisms (Almut Nebel, Dvora Filon, Ariella Oppenheim and Marina Faerman); 24) Forensic anthropology in Israel (Tzipi Kahana and Jehuda Hiss).