| Native Americans are often cast in the | | | | Steckel and Dr. Jerome C. Rose - |
| role of victims of White aggression and | | | | discovered that the haleness of |
| unbridled avarice-driven or gratuitous | | | | Native-Americans declined markedly in |
| violence, especially in the territories | | | | the 1000 years before Columbus |
| known collectively today as the United | | | | "discovered" them. |
| States. But the first massacre was | | | | The vast majority of the skeletons |
| perpetrated by Indians in the British | | | | showed telltale signs of advanced |
| colony Jamestown, in Virginia in 1622. | | | | degenerative joint disease, |
| They slaughtered 347 white men, women | | | | deteriorating dental health, stature, |
| and children on that occasion. | | | | anemia, arrested tissue development, |
| Europeans are also accused of importing | | | | infections and trauma from injuries. |
| pathogens, disease causing agents, such | | | | These were attributed by the |
| as smallpox and measles, malaria and | | | | participants to limited diets and urban |
| yellow fever. Indigenous people had no | | | | congestion. People became shorter and |
| immunological resistance to these | | | | died earlier - on average at age 35 - as |
| illnesses as they were never exposed to | | | | the centuries passed. |
| them. | | | | "Pre-Columbian populations were among |
| But recent findings by a team of | | | | the healthiest and the least healthy in |
| anthropologists, economists and | | | | our sample," Dr. Steckel and Dr. Rose |
| paleopathologists who have completed a | | | | said. "While pre-Columbian natives may |
| massive study of the health of people | | | | have lived in a disease environment |
| living in the Western Hemisphere in the | | | | substantially different from that in |
| last 7,000 years - suggest that Native | | | | other parts of the globe, the original |
| American's health was severely run down | | | | inhabitants also brought with them, or |
| long before the Europeans delivered the | | | | evolved with, enough pathogens to create |
| coup de grace. | | | | chronic conditions of ill health under |
| The researchers analyzed more than | | | | conditions of systematic agriculture and |
| 12,500 skeletons - half of them | | | | urban living." |
| pre-Columbian - from 65 sites in North | | | | Moreover, there are signs that diseases |
| and South America for evidence of | | | | hitherto thought to have been introduced |
| infections, malnutrition and other | | | | by the white explorers were actually |
| health problems. | | | | indigenous.1,000-year-old Peruvian |
| The study - "The Backbone of History: | | | | mummies, for instance, were found to |
| Health and Nutrition in the Western | | | | have been infected with tuberculosis in |
| Hemisphere", edited by Dr. Richard H. | | | | their lungs. |