A new study led by a Charles Sturt University researcher and international colleagues is challenging a long-accepted idea about how scientists identify ancient disease. Evidence from the skeletal remains of children who lived in prehistoric Vietnam suggests that treponemal diseases could have been passed from mother to child thousands of years ago. Congenital transmission has historically been viewed as a strong indicator of venereal syphilis, but the new findings suggest that other forms of treponemal disease may also have spread this way.
The international team from Australia and Vietnam was led by Dr. Melandri Vlok (pictured top, at left), Lecturer in Anatomy and Physiology in the Charles Sturt School of Dentistry and Medical Science. The researchers analyzed skeletal remains from archaeological sites in northern and southern Vietnam dating to approximately 4,000 to 3,200 years ago.
Ancient Remains Reveal Congenital Treponemal Disease The study, published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, identified three children whose teeth and bones showed clear evidence of congenital treponematosis. Treponematosis refers to a group of diseases that includes syphilis, yaws and endemic syphilis. However, the overall pattern of infection found in the population points away from venereal syphilis.
Instead, the evidence suggests the children were likely affected by a nonvenereal treponemal disease such as yaws. Yaws is a tropical disease that affects more than 150,000 people around the tropical world and can cause permanent disability. That distinction calls into question a long-standing assumption used by researchers who study diseases in ancient populations.
"For decades, congenital infection in archaeological remains has often been taken as strong evidence of venereal syphilis," the study's lead author Dr. "Our research shows that this assumption may not always hold true. Other treponemal diseases may also have been transmitted from mother to child." The researchers examined 309 individuals from 16 archaeological sites across Vietnam, covering a period from 10,000 to 1,000 years before the present time.
Only three young children showed diagnostic signs of congenital treponematosis. Their remains contained distinctive dental abnormalities and skeletal lesions associated with treponemal infection dating back at least 3,500 years. Two of the children were recovered from Man Bac, an archaeological site in northern Vietnam where previous studies had already found unusually high rates of treponemal disease.
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