Chronic disease in a 15th-century skeleton from the first European settlement of the Canary Islands: Early evidence in the colonial Atlantic expansion (San Marcial de Rubicón, Lanzarote).

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: This study seeks to evaluate morphological changes in a skeleton recovered from San Marcial de Rubicón, the earliest permanent European settlement in the Canary Islands. MATERIALS: The individual derives from a primary inhumation dated to the early fifteenth century. METHODS: Macroscopic observation was combined with conventional radiography, computed tomography, and mitochondrial DNA analysis. A systematic differential diagnosis considered metabolic, infectious, inflammatory, neoplastic, and degenerative conditions. RESULTS: The individual under investigation is an adult male with evidence of diffuse cortical thickening, periosteal new bone formation, heterogeneous radiodensity, cranial diploic expansion, long-bone bowing, severe degenerative joint disease, sacroiliac ankylosis, and elongated thoracic vertebral defects. Mitochondrial DNA analysis identified haplogroup X2c1, consistent with European maternal ancestry. CONCLUSIONS: The overall pattern is most consistent with polyostotic Paget disease of bone, although coexisting axial ankylosis and vertebral defects complicate the interpretation. These additional lesions are insufficient to support an alternative primary diagnosis. SIGNIFICANCE: This case provides an early extra-European archaeological example of Paget disease in the context of Atlantic colonial expansion. Rather than simply extending the geographic record of the disease, it shows how chronic skeletal conditions with strong European clinical and archaeological associations may be identified in frontier populations formed through mobility, settlement and colonial interaction. LIMITATIONS: The diagnosis is based on a single individual, and nuclear DNA data were insufficient to assess genetic susceptibility. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH: Further radiological, genomic, and isotopic analyses of early colonial skeletal assemblages are needed to evaluate chronic disease, mobility, and biological diversity in Atlantic frontier populations.