Dear friends! The jaw belongs to a teenager of 15 years, 15 thousand years Paleolithic. What diseases can cause such changes in the mandible (besides scurvy)?
Dear Professor:
Seems some kind of osteomalacia. A tooth is preserved? Rx? Or some evidence indicating some nutritional deficit?
Perhaps a Paleonutritional expert can help.
Regards.
Thanks for the answer! It survived only the lower jaw. On the teeth there are not manifestations nutritional deficit...
all the best
Sergey
I think it down to lack of vitamin D. A probable lack of exposure to sunlight, which I guess was common 15.000 years ago.
Regards.
Dear Jaime
I agree with your opinion. This may be one reason. Unfortunately, I have no other bones of the skeleton.
yours
Sergey
Thanks for the answer!
I think as you are.
yours
Sergey
I agree...There are two forms of vitamin D, D2 and D3. Vitamin D2, (ergocalciferol), which 15000 years ago likely would have come solely from dietary intake of plant foods. Vitamin D3, (cholecalciferol), would have come from animal foods (fatty fish, bird eggs, and animal liver), it also could be made internally when skin was exposed to sufficient ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun. Poor diversity of food supply, restricted diet and lack of exposure to sunlight may have caused the apparent osteomalacia/rickets in this young person.
Dear colleague! Thank you for your comprehensive answer! Could this be a manifestation of general infectious process? Correctly if I put only one diagnosis? Is it possible to distinguish scurvy, rickets, generalized inflammation and symptoms of anemia, having only the jaw? I think having only macroscopic manifestations, it is not possible to put only one diagnosis.
osteomyelitis (infectious process) in my opinion shouldn't look like this.
I agree with you, it is not osteomyelitis. But maybe this is a reaction of the lower jaw bone such as in sepsis? Although I agree this version is very weak.
I think is more in relation with the diet, but i don't see any malformation in the jaw.
osteoporosis?
I'm afraid to make a mistake, but it is very similar to the typical traces of blows to the lower jaw with subperiosteal osteomyelitis.
I am not sure if these changes indicate a concrete disease. Unspecific inflammatory or haemorrhagic processes (on the gums?) as causes seem most likely to me.
The individual is too young for osteoporosis (I think). There is no scale and the jaw is very gracile (maybe too much). Is it a female? Scurvy is a possibility, but I'd be inclined to suggest that this and/or malnutrition, mainly lack of vegetable products in the diet that would provide retinol (vitamin A deficiency). There seems to be a problem in the formation of the bone tissue, not the degeneration of it and the size, considering it's a European paleolithic individual, is also an indication of a probable problem in growth. Of course a differential diagnosis could be made if you have more elements of the skeleton.
Dear colleagues!
I agree with you, many diseases can be the cause of these changes. Unfortunately, this is all that I have (only the lower jaw).
Yes, it's female teenager. on the jaw so gracile. On the teeth (5 teeth), which remained in the jaw no traces malnutrition (tooth enamel hypoplasia is not). I still prone to what is the lack of vitamins C, D, A. likely all together. What do you think?
Can you tell us what teeth were preserved? Teeth calcify and erupt at different ages, hence hypoplasia will develop at specific ages (only during the time of calcification). I would expect that the signs of stress caused by severe malnutrition affecting the development of the jaw bone would be seen in the anterior teeth and maybe the first molar. Systemic vitamin deficiency strong enough to affect the development of such a crucial bone must have happened in her first five years or so.
2 upper molars and two molars lower and one upper premolar were found. These permanent teeth. Other teeth unfortunately not. Maybe for the lost teeth was hypoplasia. In the first molars, no hypoplasia. Sorry for my bad English.
Your English is fine, don't worry :) I suggest you contact Simon Hillson at the University College of London. If anyone has seen something similar it is him. His email address is on his page of the university. See link:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/people/staff/hillson
You could look at bacteria in the gums. Bacteria associated with periodontal disease. Bacteria and toxins.
Dear colleagues! I'm working with the dental pathology analysis of this sample now, and on the second molars are the multiple pits which can be one of the forms on enamel hypoplasia.
Just throwing out the idea of infection. Also, soil action can
imitate pathologies. (My dentist swore, upon seeing an
excavated mandible, that bone loss was due infection,
when it could have been due to soil conditions.) Was the
soil acid? Any plant roots active in the soil?
Wishing you well
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