Bioarchaeology of East Asia: Movement, Contact, Health

16. Trauma and Infectious Disease in Northern Japan: Okhotsk and Jomon

16 Trauma and Infectious Disease in Northern Japan Okhotsk and Jomon MARC OXENHAM, HIROFUMI MATSUMUR A, AND ALLISON DR AKE The cold of the Far North has been characterized as a screen serving in past times to prevent the flow of many pathological germs along with the movements of their human hosts. . . . Apparently the cold screen explains why at the time of the first European contact the Indians lacked many disease entities common to the Old World, and hence were so vulnerable to the diseases introduced by the Europeans and their African slaves. Stewart 1960: 265 Stewart was writing more than 50 years ago in order to pose a mechanism to explain the perceived lack of disease in the New World prior to European contact. Influential in developing the notion of a relatively disease-free preEuropean -contact New World was Ashburn’s (1947) thesis for good initial contact indigenous population health in the ethnohistorical records, coupled with the devastating effects of European-introduced diseases (e.g., typhus , smallpox, and measles, to name a few) on these same people. Stewart’s (1960) hypothesis was that the northern climate, being very different from that in which humans originally evolved, was able to cold-filter out a number of disease agents (Merbs 1992), particularly considering the slow speed, measured in generations, at which early migrants probably travelled (Araujo et al. 1988). More recently Crawford (1998) noted the importance of the cold screen hypothesis with respect to parasite life cycles outside of the human body and other pathogens that are not closely related to their human hosts. Newman (1976) and Merbs (1992) have also provided support for the view that the cold screen hypothesis is still relevant in explaining disease flow into the Americas from Asia. 400 Marc Oxenham, Hirofumi Matsumura, and Allison Drake What is missing from the discussion are data on infectious disease loads in cold-adapted Northeast Asian populations in the past. Given that far northern Japan extends into the subarctic zone and skeletal samples are available for this region, it might be expected that the evidence for infectious disease would be limited because of an analogous cold screen effect. The purpose of this study is to (1) examine the evidence for infectious disease and trauma in Hokkaido, Japan; (2) compare these findings to other subarctic and arctic samples from Alaska; and (3) explore the implications of the observed patterning and frequency of infectious disease and debilitating traumatic lesions in cold-adapted marine foraging communities in Northeast Asia. Methods and Materials The skeletal samples used in this study derive from a number of Jomon and Okhotsk sites on Hokkaido and Rebun Island, Japan. Because sample sizes from individual Jomon and Okhotsk sites are small for the most part, an aggregated Jomon and Okhotsk sample form the analytical units used in this study. Listed sample sizes are indicative only; refer to the section on sample preservation below. The earliest sample (Initial Jomon, ~8000–5100 years BP, n = 3 individuals) is from Midorimachi, while the Middle Jomon (5100– 4050 years BP, n = 13) is sampled at Kitakogane and Kotan-Onsen. Five sites represent the late Jomon (4050–3000 years BP, n = 32): Funadomari, Takasago ,Irie,Usujiri,andTenneru.Onesite,Misawa,fallsintotheFinalJomon (3000–2400 years BP, n = 1). The five sampled Epi-Jomon sites (2400–1400 yearsBP,n=13)compriseOnkoromanai,Rebunge,Minami-Usu,Bozuyama, and Chatsu 4. The aggregated Okhotsk (AD 550–1200) sample is composed of individuals from seven sites: Ohmisaki (n = 19), Hamanaka 2 and 1 (n = 4), Oshonai (n = 3), Utoro-Jinjayama (n = 6), Menashidomari (n = 1), Pirikatai (n = 2), and Tomiiso (n = 2). A range of other studies that have assessed paleohealth indicators in subarctic and arctic samples from the North American continent serve as appropriate (see Oxenham and Matsumura 2007) comparisons for the subarctic Hokkaidomaterial.ThesecomparativesamplesincludeKeenleyside’s(1998) earlyAleuts(3000–500 yearsBP, n=65)andEskimo (1,450–100 yearsBP, n = 128) as well as a late Aleut sample (14th–18th century AD, n = 227) (Keenleyside 2003). A study by Guatelli-Steinberg and colleagues (2004), using a composite sample of Inuits from Point Hope Alaska (500 BC–AD 1700, n = 21), provided another data set on enamel hypoplasia. Summarizing Hokkaido skeletal preservation and determining actual individual sample sizes are difficult because of the curatorial methods em- Trauma and Infectious Disease in Northern Japan: Okhotsk and Jomon 401 ployed (separate storage of each body element by type). Sample preservation is...