Jesse Casana, professor and chair of the department of anthropology “
Share May 03, 2021 by Amy Olson
An analysis of fecal samples shows New England rural elites had parasitic infections.
In June 2019, the Digging Dartmouth project is set up on the lawn outside Dartmouth Library s Baker-Berry Library and the former site of the Ripley/Choate House. (Photo by Eli Burakian 00)
Jesse Casana, professor and chair of the department of anthropology (on the left); Keira Byno 19; and Elise Laugier, a graduate student student in Ecology, Evolution, Environment and Society (standing in the privy); work on excavating the privy once attached to the Ripley/Choate House. (Photo by Eli Burakian 00)
Research suggests disease may have been more widespread in New England than previously thought
A photograph likely from the 1860s showing the Dartmouth College Congressionalist Church and vestry
(left) and the adjacent Ripley/Choate House. (Photo courtesy of the Rauner Special Collections Library at Dartmouth)
May 3, 2021 SHARE
Parasitic infections, including tapeworm and whipworm, were a common problem in the United States until the 20th century. It is commonly believed that these infections mainly impacted lower-income, urban areas where conditions including shared public spaces, lack of sewage systems and poor sanitation were prime for disease spread.
However, new research conducted by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and Dartmouth College and published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports suggests that parasitic disease was likely widespread in New England, even in remote rural areas and in wealthy households.
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IMAGE: Hazard & Caswell bottles from an apothecary in Newport, R.I., that contained a medicinal concoction marketed as a cure for digestive and other ailments. view more
Credit: Photo by Austin Chad Hill.
In the early 19th century in North America, parasitic infections were quite common in urban areas due in part to population growth and urbanization. Prior research has found that poor sanitation, unsanitary privy (outhouse) conditions, and increased contact with domestic animals, contributed to the prevalence of parasitic disease in urban areas. A new study examining fecal samples from a privy on Dartmouth s campus illustrates how rural wealthy elites in New England also had intestinal parasitic infections. The findings are published in the
Nathaniel Kitchel, the Robert A. 1925 and Catherine L. McKennan Postdoctoral Fellow “
Share March 04, 2021 by Amy Olson
Researchers trace the age of a Mount Holly mammoth rib fragment from Mount Holly, Vt.
Replica of a woolly mammoth (
Mammuthus primigenius) in the Royal BC Museum in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The display is from 1979 and the fur is muskox hair. (Image by Flying Puffin, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license – cropped from original)
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Woolly mammoths may have walked the landscape at the same time as the earliest humans in what is now New England, according to a Dartmouth study published in Boreas. Through the radiocarbon dating of a rib fragment from the Mount Holly mammoth from Mount Holly, Vt., the researchers learned that this mammoth existed some 12,800 years ago. The humans in the Northeast are thought to have arrived around the same time.