Scientific Approaches to Ancient Disease: The Case of the Columbian Contact

The exchange of pathogens between the Americas and the Old World in the context of the Columbian exchange has elicited considerable debate among historians and archaeologists and has important consequences for our understanding of global history and health patterns in the early modern era.  The written records, often produced significantly after the disease-producing events by authors with no knowledge of germ theory, have proven inconclusive.  Recent advances have and are being developed to order to detect the presence of diseases in the human material record.  The historical questions of pathogen identification and disease burden can be resolved by new genetic approaches, which when coupled to rigorous assessments of population cohesion, may well help to resolve long standing questions regarding the impact of contact between long separated peoples.