4 ms·
This is all interesting, but the second half of the article pretty much says that the headline is a bit of a stretch. The potential date range for the tested bo
by xhkkffbf 6y ago
This is all interesting, but the second half of the article pretty much says that the headline is a bit of a stretch. The potential date range for the tested bones is wide enough that they could have died after Columbus's return.
> Molly Zuckerman, a bioarchaeologist at Mississippi State University who studies ancient Treponemal disease, praises the researchers’ feat of extracting Treponemal DNA, but notes that the sample date ranges are wide and can’t fully disprove the Columbus hypothesis. “This paper does not provide that kind of golden prize of evidence of syphilis in the pre-Columbian period in the Old World.”
- gwern 6y agoThe diversity argument is stronger. Even if you argue that the skeletons post-date Columbus, now you also need to argue that it wasn't just one case that came back but several (or that the understanding of its mutation clock & strains are wrong).
- xhkkffbf 6y agoWell, there were more than one sailor on the expedition -- and there's no reason why one sailor couldn't bring back multiple strains. In some cases, a dominant strain drives out the others, but not in all microbes.
- raducu 6y agoAm I missing something here? Why is this about Columbus, the skeletons are dated mid 1400's - 1600's. This is quite ridiculous. This is like that one star that is like 80 million years older than the Big Bang, in the estimated age range.
- raducu 6y agoIt's not like there weren't voyages after Columbus, you know. The other strains could have come from the other, more numerous voyages after Columbus. The question is when were the first skeletons in America first shown to have had syphilis, if it's earlier than the 1400's and in Europe there were none, the question is settled.