Human soft tissue tumors in paleopathology • 259 



nuclear material can be observed. This marked pleomor- 

 phism is characteristic of the tumor. Alveolar rhabdomysar- 

 coma occurs chiefly in young persons under the age of 20 

 (EnzingerandShiraki 1969)and. inchildren. morethan55% 

 of the cases have primary tumor locations in the head and 

 neck (Weichcrt et al. 1976). This tumor can be confused 

 easily with an undifferentiated carcinoma or a lymphoma. 



Discussion 



It is impossible to estimate how many total mummies, com- 

 plete skeletons, and partial bones have been examined for 

 tumors since the initial studies of paleopathology by Ruffer in 

 the early part of this century. It may be stated that only a few 

 dozen neoplasms, the majority in bones, have been recorded 

 from the thousands of ancient bodies. Why is this scarcity of 

 tumors still an enigma? 



It has been suggested that in antiquity people did not live 

 long enough to develop tumors, that age was the most impor- 

 tant factor in determining who would develop neoplastic le- 

 sions. However, in many of the 23 pre-Columbian cultures 

 we have studied, at least 40% of the population lived past the 

 age of 40 years, including them in a geriatric population. 

 Many of these cultures had a geriatric survival rate of greater 

 than 259c. 



In the last century, numerous substances have been intro- 

 duced into the daily lives of humans that have been associ- 

 ated with carcinogenesis, such as asbestos, azo dyes, etc. 

 Humans were not in contact with the large majority of these 

 substances in earlier eras; in fact, most of these carcinogenic 

 substances are products developed after the industrial revolu- 

 tion. Among the known carcinogenic factors associated with 

 ancient cultures were radiation energy from the sun and to- 

 bacco. There are no published reports of malignant tumors of 

 the skin in ancient populations that lived in tropical areas 

 most affected by the solar rays. It is also known that many of 

 the primitive societies used tobacco, and often individuals 

 inhaled large quantities of smoke, both from tobacco and 

 from cooking/heating fires. Not a single carcinoma of the 

 lung has yet been found. 



It is now known that diet has major implications in the 

 incidence of cancer in today's world, most notably affecting 

 carcinomas of the gastrointestinal tract. It is of interest to 

 note that among the pre-Columbian Indian studies, the low 

 incidence of cancer did not change with the different diets of 

 the area. The diets of those Indians varied greatly over rela- 

 tively short distances, with some foodstuffs limited to very 

 small geographic locations. The diet of the coastal economy 

 in Chile, for example, was dependent mostly on seafood, 

 while a short distance inland the diet of the mainland cultures 

 consisted of foodstuffs from both agriculture and hunting. 



The study of neoplasms in antiquity is a difficult task. 

 Though most tumors are of soft tissue origin, most of the 

 material available is bone. The possibility of missing tumors 

 in paleopathological studies has been suggested, but Zim- 

 merman, in experimental studies, has shown that modern 

 tumors can be mummified and rehydrated later and that sec- 

 tions taken from this material can be easily interpreted (Zim- 

 merman 1977). This evidence suggests that tumors are not 

 "mis.sed." but that they were indeed less frequent in antiquity. 



The factor likely to play the most decisive role in the 

 incidence of cancer is the genetic structure of the individual. 

 In the case of primitive societies, Klepinger has suggested 

 that these people may have had immune systems that later 

 became depressed secondary to as yet undiscovered reasons, 

 thereby allowing benign factors as.sociated with these ancient 

 men to become oncogenic (Klepinger 1980). In support of 

 this theory she points out that certain papova viruses that 

 have been observed to be benign can in turn become on- 

 cogenic in laboratory animals with depressed immune sys- 

 tems. 



Conclusions 



The total number of documented soft tissue tumors from 

 ancient civilizations is fewer than 10. including the present 

 findings of a lipoma and a rhabdomyosarcoma, with more 

 than a thousand complete autopsies performed in our studies 

 in Peru and Chile of pre-Columbian mummies alone. The 

 most important factors for this low incidence of neoplastic 

 lesions in mummified materials include the facts that almost 

 all of the known carcinogenic agents prevalent in today's 

 world have only recently been brought into contact with hu- 

 mans, and that the immune system of ancient populations 

 may have been different. Additional research in the patholog- 

 ical investigation of mummified soft tissues may disclose 

 further neoplastic lesions and, working with a team of immu- 

 nologists, anthropologists, geneticists, and epidemiologists, 

 we may one day arrive at the factors involved in the patho- 

 genesis of neoplasia. 



Literature cited 



American Cancer Society. 1988. Cancer Statistics. Ca — A Cancer 

 Journal for Clinicians. 38:1-22. 



Enzinger, F.M.. and M. Shiraki. 1969. Alveolar Rhabdomyosar- 

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Klepinger, L.L. 1980. The Evolution of Human Disease: New Find- 

 ings and Problems. Journal of Biosocial Sciences, 12:481 . 



Kramar. C CA. Baud, and R. Lagicr. 198.3. Presumed Calcified 

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