3,500-Year-Old Skeletons Rewrite Syphilis Diagnosis
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- Dr. Melandri Vlok of Charles Sturt University led an international team that identified three children with skeletal and dental signs of congenital treponematosis among 309 individuals from 16 archaeological sites across Vietnam, with remains dating to 4,000–3,200 years ago.
- Two of the three affected children came from Man Bac in northern Vietnam, where the age distribution of infections pointed to non-venereal transmission through skin contact rather than sexual activity, consistent with yaws rather than venereal syphilis.
- The findings challenge a decades-old assumption that congenital infection in archaeological remains indicates venereal syphilis — a method that has shaped debates over whether syphilis existed outside the Americas before Columbus's voyages.
- No confirmed biological or genetic evidence of pre-Columbian venereal syphilis has yet been identified inside or outside the Americas, and prior genetic studies have uncovered evidence of multiple treponemal diseases in ancient populations on both sides of the Atlantic.
- Co-lead author Ms. Minh Tran of the University of the Philippines, Diliman, noted that ancient DNA is poorly preserved in tropical Southeast Asia, and that destructive sampling of human remains raises ethical questions requiring future research to work in partnership with descendant communities.
- Yaws affects more than 150,000 people in tropical regions today and is re-emerging due to the climate crisis, according to the researchers, who argue understanding treponemal evolution matters for modern public health as well as archaeology.
Why it matters: Paleopathologists may have misclassified some ancient 'congenital syphilis' cases when they were actually yaws or related non-venereal diseases, weakening one pillar of the Columbus-origin debate. With no confirmed genetic evidence of pre-Columbian venereal syphilis on either side of the Atlantic, the long-running origin question now rests even more heavily on evolutionary interpretation than on skeletal signs alone.
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