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Resumo

Previous research suggested that maize agriculture was associated with an initial increase in skeletal infections followed by a return to former low levels. This conclusion is retested with a much larger sample, which includes all extant osteological data from the Trans‐Mississippi South and Lower Mississippi Valley archaeological areas which include eastern Texas and eastern Oklahoma, all Arkansas and Louisiana, and southern Missouri. In the present analysis the adult rates of pathological lesions range between 10 and 80 per cent, with the variation being explained by three factors. First, settlement density is associated directly with infection rates and appears to be the primary variable in all ecological zones and cultural periods. Second, both the amount and diversity of exploitable biomass are connected directly with infections for both collecting and farming peoples, while degenerative disease appears to vary with the effort required for resource extraction. Third, the direct relationship between maize agriculture and elevated infections is found only when the settlement pattern limits the diversity and availability of collectable resources in the less productive ecological zones.

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