If bone is considered as a composite of collagen (protein) and bioapatite (mineral), then
three pathways of diagenesis are identified:(1) chemical deterioration of the organic …

Leprosy, which has afflicted human populations for millenia, results from infection with
Mycobacterium leprae, an unculturable pathogen with an exceptionally long generation …

Research Methods in Human Skeletal Biology serves as the one location readers can go to
not only learn how to conduct research in general, but how research is specifically …

A paleomicrobiological study was performed on 37 skeletal tissue specimens from cadavers
in the necropolis of Thebes-West, Upper Egypt,(2120–500 BC) and four from the necropolis …

Background Recent advances in sequencing have facilitated large-scale analyses of the
metagenomic composition of different samples, including the environmental microbiome of …

Palaeomicrobiology is an emerging field that is devoted to the detection, identification and
characterization of microorganisms in ancient remains. Data indicate that host-associated …

Two of humankind's most socially and psychologically devastating diseases, tuberculosis
and leprosy, have been the subject of intensive paleopathological research due to their …

The identification of genetic material from pathogenic organisms in ancient tissues provides
a powerful tool for the study of certain infectious diseases in historic populations. We have …

To determine whether ancient DNA (aDNA) can be used to study the palaeopathology of
venereal syphilis, we carried out a comprehensive analysis of the preservation of human …

We describe the molecular identification of human tuberculosis (TB) from vertebral bone
tissue samples from three different populations of ancient Egypt. The specimens were …