G. Michael Taylor

Objective

To evaluate the likelihood that pathological features noted on cattle bones indicate that the animal suffered hypertrophic osteopathy.

Materials

Cattle bones, mostly from the lower extremities, representing a single individual, recovered from a Romano-British villa (4th century CE).

Methods

The remains were subject to macroscopic, low-power microscopic, radiographic and μCT study, as well as biomolecular analysis for M. tuberculosis complex and Brucella species DNA.

Results

The remains represent a single individual and show bilaterally symmetrical subperiosteal new bone formation with no micro-anatomical alteration of the underlying bone structure. aDNA analysis was negative for M. tuberculosis and Brucella, but positive for bovine mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).

Conclusions

Hypertrophic osteopathy is the most likely differential diagnoses.

Significance

Hypertrophic osteopathy is uncommon in bovids, and this is the first suspected case in livestock remains from an archaeological site. It demonstrates the importance of differential diagnosis in disarticulated remains through recognition of skeletal patterning.

Limitations

The diagnosis is hampered by the incomplete nature of the remains.

Suggestions for further research

Given the primacy of chronic infection as a cause of hypertrophic osteopathy in the past, scanning these remains for evidence of pathogens using Next Generation Sequencing when feasible, and other biomolecular techniques may be useful.

Eight burials from the multi-period rural settlement site of Ranelagh near Roscommon town, Ireland, with palaeopathological lesions suggestive of skeletal tuberculosis or brucellosis were examined by ancient DNA (aDNA) testing. Tuberculosis infection (MTB complex DNA) was confirmed in five individuals –an 11th-13th CE adolescent female (14.5-17.5 years), two young adults females (18-35 years, 7th-10th CE), one adolescent of unknown sex and one middle-aged adult (35-50 years, medieval in date). In the latter case, the differential diagnosis included brucellosis due to the presence of small multifocal lytic lesions in the lower spinal vertebrae. However, this individual and all cases tested negative for Brucella species DNA. In two positive cases, lineage 4 (Euro-American) Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA was identified in extracts obtained from tooth pulp cavities. These are the first archaeological individuals from Ireland to have had tuberculosis infection confirmed through aDNA analysis.

Introduction. We have examined four burials from the St Mary Magdalen mediaeval leprosarium cemetery in Winchester, Hampshire, UK. One (Sk.8) was a male child, two (Sk.45 and Sk.52) were adolescent females and the fourth (Sk.512) was an adult male. The cemetery was in use between the 10th and 12th centuries. All showed skeletal lesions of leprosy. Additionally, one of the two females (Sk.45) had lesions suggestive of multi-cystic tuberculosis and the second (Sk.52) of leprogenic odontodysplasia (LO), a rare malformation of the roots of the permanent maxillary incisors.

Gap statement. Relatively little is known of the manifestations of lepromatous leprosy (LL) in younger individuals from the archaeological record.

Aims and Methodology. To address this, we have used ancient DNA testing and osteological examination of the individuals, supplemented with X-ray and microcomputed tomography (micro-CT) scan as necessary to assess the disease status.

Results and Conclusions. The presence of Mycobacterium leprae DNA was confirmed in both females, and genotyping showed SNP type 3I-1 strains but with a clear genotypic variation. We could not confirm Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex DNA in the female individual SK.45. High levels of M. leprae DNA were found within the pulp cavities of four maxillary teeth from the male child (Sk.8) with LO, consistent with the theory that the replication of M. leprae in alveolar bone may interfere with root formation at key stages of development. We report our biomolecular findings in these individuals and review the evidence this site has contributed to our knowledge of mediaeval leprosy.