Anemia In The Mayan Civilization

When thinking about the Mayan civilization in the common mind, anemia is most likely not even a thought associated with the Maya. Instead, one may think of the architecture, culture, and reputation. In a 2011 article published by Katie Whitaker for the University of Ontario Journal of Anthropology, she explains the correlation between the Maya population and the evidence of anemia that was often overlooked since it was not a life-threatening disease such as the more common diseases like syphilis and small pox.
Anemia has the ability to be genetically transferred or as a result of a diet lacking in iron. This disease has been long questioned of its abilities to be evident post mortem in skeletal remains when compared to the more visible complications of anemia during life. This thought was raised several times but until German anatomist Dr. Hermann Welcker began to provide medical evidence of anemia. In his studies, he found “…a form of porous lesions within the inner orbits of the eye” known as cribra orbitalia, in modern medicine porotic hyperstosis (Whitaker, 2011). Even though porotic hyperstosis was not recognized as a symptom of anemia …show more content…
When considering the Osteological Paradox, two terms are raised: selective mortality and hidden heterogeneity (Whitaker, 2011). Selective heterogeneity is based on a sample of a population, therefore proving that the evidence provided in this example with the Maya cannot be holistically accurate. Parallel to methods in Statistics, there are several different types of outcomes from any sample. Hidden heterogeneity gives us the impression that this population’s ancestors had different compositions and were “varied” (Whitaker,