Deficiencies and challenges in the study of ancient tuberculosis DNA

We explore the standards of research and reporting needed to justify the destructive analysis of archaeological human bone for biomolecular studies of ancient tuberculosis (TB). Acceptable standards in osteological interpretation have been met in some biomolecular papers, but there are also cases where insufficient care has been taken in distinguishing between pathognomonic lesions and those that are ‘consistent with’ a diagnosis of TB. Some biomolecular studies have failed to recognize that archaeological bones might be contaminated with environmental mycobacteria whose DNA could give rise to false positives in polymerase chain reactions directed at members of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. The difficulties of applying spoligotyping to ancient DNA have also been underestimated and conclusions drawn from such analyses are often weakly supported. Assumptions that mycobacterial DNA preserves better than human DNA, and that contamination with modern DNA is less of a problem, has led in some cases to a laxity in research standards with insufficient attention paid to the need to authenticate ancient DNA results. We illustrate our concerns by reference to a recent paper reporting biomolecular detection of ancient TB DNA in skeletons from the eastern Mediterranean Neolithic settlement of Atlit-Yam. We are unconvinced that the skeletal evidence presented in this paper gives sufficient indication of TB to warrant destructive analysis, and we are concerned that during the biomolecular part of the project inadequate attention was paid to the possibility that results might be due to laboratory cross-contamination or to amplification of environmental mycobacterial DNA present in the bones.     

Rocks are heavy: transport costs and Paleoarchaic quarry behavior in the Great Basin

Central place foraging models are used to investigate assemblage variability at two Paleoarchaic (terminal Pleistocene/early Holocene) dacite quarries in the central and eastern Great Basin. Our analyses focus specifically on biface reduction and how varying degrees of reduction relate to the costs of transporting the resulting products upon departing the quarry. Our results suggest that when the distance to be traveled to a residential base is great, reduction will proceed further at the quarry than if the residential base is fairly close. Further, a residential site assemblage will consist of bifaces at later stages of reduction than its associated quarry.     

Book reviews

Dynamique de l'espace français et aménagement du territoire. (The Dynamics of French Space and Spatial Planning), Michel Rochefort. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1995, 138 pp, £15.00, ISBN 2 7384 3338 3

Urban Process and Power. Peter Ambrose. London and New York: Routledge, 1994, 245 pp, £12.00 pb, ISBN 1 415 00850 6; £40.00 hb, ISBN 0 415 00850 4

Transport Systems, Policy and Planning: a Geographical Approach. R. Tolley and B. Turton. Harlow: Longman, 1995, xviii + 401 pp, £20.99 pb, ISBN 0 582 00562 0

Transport Policy—Ways into Europe's Future (Strategies and Options for the Future of Europe: Basic Findings 8). K. Button, with contributions by W. Weidenfeld, G. Wolfgang Heinze, H. H. Kill, R. Münch, N. Walter, G. Topmann, H. Holzapfel and K. O. Schallaböck. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers, 1994, 227 pp, £9.00, ISBN 3 89204 065 6

The European Challenge: Geography and Development in the European Community. M. Blacksell and A. M. Williams (Eds). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 429 pp, 1994, £45.00 hb, ISBN 0 19 874176 6; £15.95 pb, ISBN 0 19 874177 4