Several etiological explanations for the characteristic malarial skeletal lesions are explored, including severe malarial anemia, an imbalance in bone remodeling, and extramedullary erythropoiesis. The importance of careful differential diagnoses between other infectious and noninfectious causes of these lesions is discussed, including the potential for coinfection of malaria with other infectious diseases. The findings of this study are pivotal in establishing diagnostic criteria by which we can identify the prevalence and impact of malaria on past populations.

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Many Spanish chroniclers detail violent cultural practices of the indigenous populations they encountered in the Isthmo-Colombian Area; however, lack of physical evidence of interpersonal violence from archaeological contexts has made uncertain the veracity of these claims. At the precolumbian site of Playa Venado in Panama, these accounts of violent mortuary rituals may have influenced the interpretation of the burials encountered in excavations, leading to claims of mutilations and sacrifice, with little or no supporting evidence. This paper considers the physical evidence for interpersonal violence and sacrificial death at Playa Venado based on the burial positioning, demographic composition, and trauma present on the human remains recovered from the site. Analysis of field notes, excavation photos, and the 77 individuals available for study from the site yielded no evidence of perimortem trauma nor abnormal body positioning unexplained by taphonomy. The demography at the site tracked with normal patterns of natural age-at-death at the non-elite site of Cerro Juan Díaz rather than the abnormal patterns seen at the large ceremonial sites of Sitio Conte and El Caño. Therefore, we propose an alternative interpretation of the site as a non-elite cemetery containing evidence of re-use and secondary burial practices associated with ancestor veneration rituals.