Book Reviews

M

ALARIA

: G

ENETIC AND

E

VOLUTIONARY

A

SPECTS

. By Krishna

R. Dronamraju and Paolo Arese. New York: Springer.
2006. 190 pp. ISBN 0-387-28294-7. $129.00 (hardcover).

In his book The Red Queen, Matt Ridley ponders the

fact that host and parasite are locked in a close evolu-
tionary embrace. This embrace is the essence of this
magnificent book coedited by Krishna Dronamraju and
Paulo Arese. Malaria focuses on genetic and evolution-
ary insights into a parasite blamed for the death of a
child every 30 s worldwide.

The link between thalassemia and malaria was

noticed decades ago. The book opens with Dronamraju’s
introduction to J. B. S. Haldane’s malaria hypothesis
and provides an abundance of geographical and epidemi-
ological evidence supporting the idea that malaria
shaped the frequency and distribution of several heredi-
tary hemoglobinopathies. This theory raises fascinating
questions about the consequences of malaria eradication;
chiefly, how would eradication impact the distribution of
the hemoglobinopathy genes? In this context, the hypo-
thesis put forward by Robin Bannerman that the fluctu-
ation of environmental factors around the world can
impact microcytemic foci and lead, over centuries, to
their appearance or regression is thought provoking.

The mechanisms responsible for the less severe

malaria symptoms exhibited in heterozygotes are incom-
pletely understood and controversial. A chapter by Arese
et al. critically reviews studies suggesting that red blood
cells affected by certain hemoglobinopathies are not
favorable for parasite development as well as reports
arguing that this proposed mechanism does not satisfac-
torily address malaria resistance in certain people. The
authors reveal the existence of methodological bias at
several levels and propose an alternative mechanism to
which the enhanced phagocytosis of ring forms develop-
ing inside mutant red blood cells is fundamental. Patho-
genesis, in their opinion, is best explained by the
increased production of reactive oxygen species, which
they view as the common denominator among all hemo-
globinopathies, genetic and clinical differences notwith-
standing. Heterozygote advantage is not limited to
malaria. Carriers of the cystic fibrosis trait have a lower
incidence of tuberculosis. The frequency of the CCR5-

D32 mutation, which confers resistance to HIV-1 infec-
tion, is thought to have increased under selective pres-
sure exerted by an unknown infectious disease, bubonic
plague and smallpox being the most likely candidates.
Insights into the molecular mechanisms by which hemo-
globinopathies confer protection against malaria will
therefore improve our general perspective on host-para-
site interaction.

Plasmodium falciparum genetic polymorphisms have

proved a powerful tool to examine parasite population
structure and history. Rich and Ayala review evidence
for and against their malaria’s Eve hypothesis, which
posits that all existing parasite populations derive from
a recent (several thousand years) common ancestral
strain. Their data and arguments are fascinating and
controversial at the same time. While malaria’s Eve hy-
pothesis is backed by some authors, such as Conway,
who provide supportive evidence emerging from mito-

chondrial genome analyses, other groups favor the idea
that the parasite is much older and much more diverse.
Phylogenetic trees based on the cytochrome b and cir-
cumsporozoite proteins show that the four human para-
sites are very remotely related to each other and that P.
falciparum is more closely related to the chimpanzee
parasite P. reichenowi than to any other Plasmodium
species. Based on the absence of differences in the csp
gene between P. malariae and P. brasilianum and
between P. vivax and P. simium, it was concluded that
lateral transfer between humans and monkeys occurred
in recent times. Rich and Ayala present captivating
arguments to support the lateral transfer of parasites
between humans and monkeys; even more engaging are
the debates concerning its direction.

The emergence of drug-resistant parasite strains is

one of the causes for the recent increase in malaria mor-
tality and morbidity, and host and genetic factors
involved in malaria resistance constitute a cardinal
theme of the book. A chapter by Mehlotra and Zimmer-
man examines human enzymes involved in drug metabo-
lism, a topic so far underexplored. Their analysis impli-
cates human metabolic enzyme polymorphisms in the
selection for drug-resistant strains and in the variability
noticed in antimalarial drug effectiveness. The authors
underscore the urgent need to develop an integrative
approach for assessing treatment response. Such an
approach would take into consideration not only the
drug sensitivity of a parasite strain but also the variabil-
ity in host metabolic drug response. Sharma underscores
the importance of vector genetics in malaria control in
India. His chapter illustrates how genetics solved one of
the paradoxes related to the differential vector potential
of Anopheles culicifacies, the major vector of malaria in
India, in regions that are similar geographically and
improved our understanding of parasite transmission
dynamics.

Two classic papers authored by Haldane in 1949 con-

clude the book. ‘‘The Rate of Mutations of Human
Genes’’ emphasizes the importance of human gene muta-
tion rates for understanding evolutionary theory and for
solving practical problems. ‘‘Disease and Evolution,’’ the
publication that introduced the malaria hypothesis into
the scientific literature, examines the evolutionary sig-
nificance of the struggle against infectious diseases. This
article suggests that, from an evolutionary perspective,
the struggle against infections differs significantly from
the struggle against other agents such as natural forces
or predators. Several intriguing questions emerge from
this section, such as whether disease serves a purpose or
is a disadvantage in the interaction between species, and
what advantages genetic and biochemical diversity
impart to a species.

Malaria: Genetic and Evolutionary Aspects will bene-

fit a broad range of medical, scientific, and public
health professionals. Besides strengthening our under-
standing of the evolutionary origins of malaria, the text
opens new perspectives into infectious diseases. Under-
standing the evolutionary origin of pathogens has im-
portant implications for the prevention and treatment
of infectious diseases, vaccine design, and clarification
of the relationship between hosts and pathogens over
time.

V

V

C

2007 WILEY-LISS, INC.

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 134:135–139 (2007)

The evolutionary biology of microorganisms lies at the

core of our ability to understand, prevent, and treat infec-
tious diseases. Some of the most urgent topics in infectious
disease research are the emergence of new diseases and the
reemergence of old ones; the appearance of drug-resistant
microorganisms; the involvement of previously known
microorganisms in the pathogenesis of new diseases; and
the ability of some pathogens to cross species barriers. An
evolutionary perspective is fundamental to comprehending
how virulence, drug resistance, and host–pathogen rela-
tionships have evolved through history. Ultimately, this

approach will unveil the complex and dynamic interaction
between microorganisms, host, and environment.

R

ICHARD

A. S

TEIN

New York University School of Medicine
New York, New York

DOI 10.1002/ajpa.20591
Published online 15 May 2007 in Wiley InterScience

(www.interscience.wiley.com).

P

RIMATE

B

IOGEOGRAPHY

: P

ROGRESS AND

P

ROSPECTS

. Edited by

Shawn M. Lehman and John G. Fleagle. New York:
Springer. 2006. 535 pp. ISBN 0-387-29871-1. $149.00
(hardcover).

Emerging from the work of such early naturalists as

Alexander von Humboldt and Alfred Russel Wallace, bio-
geography has historically been viewed as a descriptive sci-
ence. Modern biogeography now explores diverse patterns
and processes that determine the geographic variation of
nature, including behavior, ecology, physiology, systematics,
climate, and geology. As a consequence, biogeography has
been practiced by researchers from a variety of scientific
traditions, each with its own methods and interpretations.
This volume is an attempt by Lehman and Fleagle to pres-
ent biogeography as a unified discipline that provides a
unique perspective on the ecology and evolution of prima-
tes. The result is a valuable resource for primatologists,
paleoanthropologists, conservation biologists, and biogeogra-
phers-in-training.

Except for the first chapter and the final section,

which provide an introduction to and an evolutionary
perspective on primate biogeography, the volume is
organized around four geographic regions—the Neo-
tropics, Africa, Madagascar, and Asia—reflecting the dis-
tribution of extant primates. Each section is preceded by
a short introduction, putting the chapters in geographic
context and providing synthesis among them. Across
these sections, the chapters span the methodological and
conceptual breadth of primate biogeography, including
descriptive models, comparative quantitative approaches,
phylogenetic systematics, and community ecology.

The first section of the book (Chapters 2–4) focuses on

Neotropical primates. Two of these chapters discuss the
historical (Lehman) and ecological (Lehman et al.) bio-
geography of primates in Guyana. Both use primate sur-
veys as the unit of analysis, whereas Chapter 3 (Ells-
worth and Hoelzer) uses genetic data to reconstruct the
colonization of Central America by howler monkeys.

Chapters 5–7 relate the biogeography of African prima-

tes to issues of taxonomy. Gonder and Disotell examine the
genetic support for the widely accepted subdivision of
chimpanzees into three geographic subspecies. Kamilar
explores the relationship between environmental variables
and ecological niche diversity, as it relates to species desig-
nation in savanna baboons. The final chapter in this sec-
tion (McGraw and Fleagle) is largely a review of the
authors’ previously published work on mangabey diphyly,
although areas for future biogeographic research are high-
lighted.

The focus of the third section (Chapters 8–10) is Mada-

gascar. Yoder and Heckman review mouse lemur genetic
data to determine whether it supports the traditional east-
west biogeographic division of the island. Ganzhorn et al.
provide a review of current issues in lemur biogeography.

They correctly point out that the rate of taxonomic revi-
sion, in addition to greatly increased research effort, has
provided a wealth of new data for biogeographic analyses
in Madagascar. As such, the correlations (or lack thereof)
between environmental variables and species richness pre-
sented by Stevens and O’Connor should be interpreted
with caution, as recent field surveys are missing from their
database.

The fourth section (Chapters 11–12) focuses on the bio-

geography of Asian primates. Meijaard and Groves describe
the distribution of nonvolant mammals of mainland South-
east Asia in relation to the region’s main rivers, whereas
Harrison et al. use paleontological evidence to reconstruct
the biogeography of primates on the islands of the Sunda
Shelf during the Pleistocene. These papers accurately high-
light the complex biogeographic patterns of Southeast Asian
primates.

The volume ends with a section addressing primate

biogeography from a deep time perspective (Chapter 13–
16). Fleagle and Gilbert begin the section with a compre-
hensive and useful overview of the primate fossil record
in the context of major climatic and geological events.
The three remaining contributions examine the relation-
ship between biogeography and phylogeny. Heesy et al.
evaluate alternative hypotheses for the biogeographic
origins of major primate taxonomic groups, stressing the
need for inclusion of fossil taxa in cladistic phylogeo-
graphic analyses. Beard addresses many of the same
questions, but comes to the opposite conclusion, that it is
better not to include fossils in phylogenetic reconstruc-
tions. Rossie and Seiffert present a highly technical
chapter describing a new method for incorporating chro-
nographic and biogeographic relationships into parsi-
mony analysis.

Primate Biogeography succeeds as a reference and a

launching point for physical anthropologists interested
in biogeographic research. Lehman and Fleagle empha-
size that primates are ideal subjects for biogeographic
study, because they are generally well studied as an
order. Evidence of this fact can be found in the numer-
ous data-filled tables within the contributed papers and
the appendices at the ends of seven of the chapters. The
inclusion of this data is truly in the spirit of biogeogra-
phy, as this discipline is dependent on shared data col-
lected by many individuals working over large areas for
long periods of time.

Primate Biogeography will likely have a diverse read-

ership and will foster communication between scientists
in disparate fields of primate research. The intended au-
dience includes both practitioners and students of bio-
geography. The volume would serve well as a text in a
graduate seminar as, on the whole, the chapters are
short and not overly technical. However, the cost
($149.00) will be prohibitive for most students. I came

136

BOOK REVIEWS

American Journal of Physical Anthropology—DOI 10.1002/ajpa

across

several

typographical

errors

and

formatting

inconsistencies that detract from the volume in places,
but overall it is well edited. One criticism might be that
there are topics of relevance to primate biogeography
that are notably absent from the list of contributions.
For example, this volume lacks papers on primate
extinction biology and primate conservation. However,
these are minor points, given the impressive range of
topics covered in this book.

Overall, Primate Biogeography belongs in the library of

any conservation-minded primatologist, paleoprimatologist,
or budding biogeographer. Despite its long history, biogeog-
raphy is still a young and dynamic integrative discipline,
and this volume reflects the excitement and promise of
new challenges and opportunities in primate research.

K

ATHLEEN

M. M

ULDOON

Department of Anthropology
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA
and
Department of Anatomy
Dartmouth Medical School
Hanover, NH

DOI 10.1002/ajpa.20624
Published online 15 May 2007 in Wiley InterScience

(www.interscience.wiley.com).

T

HE

D

EADLY

T

RUTH

: A H

ISTORY OF

D

ISEASE IN

A

MERICA

. By

Gerald N. Grob.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press. 2002. 349 pp. ISBN 0-674-00881-2. $19.95
(paper).

In The Deadly Truth, Gerald N. Grob (Henry E. Sige-

rist Professor Emeritus of the History of Medicine at
Rutgers College) provides a broad overview of the history
of medicine and selected diseases in America. His review,
newly released in paperback, extends from pre-Colum-
bian cultures to relatively modern times. A chronological
approach is used to highlight the ways that culture, ide-
ology, technology, and ecology underlie the major dis-
eases at various times and places in America. Grob’s the-
oretical framework is reminiscent of the groundbreaking
work of Calvin Wells (Bones, Bodies and Disease, 1964)
although Wells’s work focused more on ancient world civ-
ilizations. Both demonstrate the need to integrate a wide
range of factors such as social class, culture, geography,
warfare, technology, and demography when attempting
to understand the etiology and effects of disease at the
population level.

The book begins with indigenous health prior to con-

tact and charts the periods of colonization, growth,
expansion, war, and industrialization. Grob focuses on
infectious disease and ultimately demonstrates that dis-
ease has never, and will never, disappear. Rather, dis-
ease morphs and changes and reappears as something
new and deadly when the right circumstances emerge.
For example, the rise of tuberculosis in crowded urban
centers in the early part of the 19th century is somewhat
counterintuitive given the increasing sophistication of
technology, medical knowledge, and hygiene. Grob shows
how endemic infectious diseases followed the decline of
the acute and chronic infections (e.g., measles) that
plagued the 18th century.

Grob presents copious historical detail, demographic

statistics, and data on morbidity and mortality to dem-
onstrate his case that epidemiological transitions have
less to do with medical intervention than with underly-
ing circumstances. Some of the useful (and stunning)
statistics that Grob reports include the huge decrease in
mortality from all infections in the later 19th and early
20th centuries, predating the use of antibiotics and vac-
cines. Following the rise and fall of various kinds of in-
fectious diseases through history, Grob discusses the
rise in heart disease-related deaths. He suggests that
new theories about the etiology of heart disease link it
with infections. The final chapter covers HIV and can-

cers, suggesting new ways to think about them given
his overarching theme that Americans will never
‘‘conquer’’ disease in any sense of the word.

A slight sense of gloom and doom pervades this book,

and readers will either find this refreshingly honest or
sort of scary. Grob presents the data as he does because
he wishes to convince the reader that medicine and tech-
nology will not save us and that there is some measure
of randomness and unpredictability to how diseases
interact with given populations in certain environments.
Biocultural change, a given in American history, is one
of the major reasons why one disease threat has replaced
another, over and over again, since the earliest history.

Anthropologists might be somewhat frustrated with

the documentation style, which embeds sources in diffi-
cult to locate endnotes. Those more familiar with the pri-
mary history literature will no doubt be comfortable
with this style. Because this is a condensed, single-vol-
ume overview covering 500-plus years of disease in
America, an abundance of literature is cited in the end-
notes, ranging from hard to locate historical medical
sources to ethnography and poetry.

The only chapter that I found seriously wanting was

Chapter 1, ‘‘The Pre-Columbians.’’ Attempting to discuss
all of paleopathology and health and disease in ancient
America, the author slips into making very general
statements that are somewhat ridiculous, especially to
those who know the data from which they are drawn.
For example, Grob states that ‘the data on prehistory
are extraordinarily scanty; nearly all ‘‘facts’’ are specula-
tive or extrapolated from tiny samples’ (p 8) and that ‘‘to
reconstruct the pattern of disease in the Americas before
1492 is extraordinarily difficult’’ (p 17). Many working in
paleoepidemiology might disagree with these overgener-
alizations. The endnotes reveal that a very small amount
of the available skeletal biology literature was used to
reconstruct a broad pattern of disease for pre-Columbian
America. The discussion on the Neolithic Revolution and
the shift to agriculture is remarkably lacking in any pre-
sentation of empirical data or even reference to the hun-
dreds of studies on disease at the various origins of agri-
culture in the Americas. The author concludes the chap-
ter with the suggestion that diseases endemic in pre-
Columbian populations (e.g., nutritional anemias, ear
infections, staph, and parasitic infections) were of a dif-
ferent nature than the crowd diseases (e.g., typhus,
smallpox, measles, influenza) widespread in Europe at
the time. Grob is clearly less familiar with the vast liter-

137

BOOK REVIEWS

American Journal of Physical Anthropology—DOI 10.1002/ajpa

ature on the paleopathology and bioarcheology of the
pre-Columbian and early colonial periods. However, later
periods are handled more authoritatively, and Grob
draws on many diverse resources to synthesize the
impact of historic and contemporary diseases.

This book could be an interesting complement to

other texts commonly used in biological anthropology
and medical anthropology courses on disease. It cer-
tainly presents a multitude of statistics and facts that
are analyzed within a biocultural framework. Some might
find the rather dystopian view of America’s future
with respect to illness, disease, and death problematic.
It would likely provoke students to grapple with Grob’s
notion that only rarely can medicine be shown to be
effective in diminishing disease for the masses. The
rich and the famous will continue to do better in terms
of life expectancy, but, in the end, magic bullets for the
infectious (bacterial and viral) diseases that kill millions
will not be found because these diseases are the products
of complex gene–environment–culture interactions.

This book has received mostly rave reviews from his-

torians, physicians, epidemiologists, and others. It does
pull together a wide variety of not only statistics but

also contextual information for the major historical
trends in morbidity and mortality in the Americas. The
focus on infectious disease is most useful for anthropolo-
gists, since it is these that interact most with a range of
biocultural and ecological factors. Although Grob makes
many general statements, and one may tire of looking at
each and every endnote to check the source for various
factoids and statistics, it is a very valuable resource for
undergraduate and graduate students and researchers
alike.

D

EBRA

L. M

ARTIN

Department of Anthropology and
Ethnic Studies
University of Nevada-Las Vegas
Las Vegas, NV

DOI 10.1002/ajpa.20626
Published online 15 May 2007 in Wiley InterScience

(www.interscience.wiley.com).

D

IET

, H

EALTH

,

AND

S

TATUS

AMONG

THE

P

ASIO

´ N

M

AYA

: A

R

EAPPRAISAL

OF

THE

C

OLLAPSE

. By Lori E. Wright.

Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. 2006. 256
pp. ISBN 0-8265-1418-9. $69.95 (paper).

Since first described in the early 20th century, the

collapse of Mayan civilization in the southern lowlands
during the Classic period has been the subject of much
fascination and debate. Although there is no universally
accepted explanatory theory, the Mayan decline is gener-
ally characterized as the result of either environmental
or social factors. Environmental theories hypothesize
that social collapse and abandonment of the region were
the result of catastrophe, epidemic disease, and climate
change. More recently, theories based on factors such as
foreign invasion, peasant revolt, and the collapse of key
trade routes have been proposed. Diet, Health, and Sta-
tus among the Pasio´n Maya is the second volume in the
Vanderbilt Institute of Mesoamerican Archaeology Series
edited by Arthur A. Demarest. The series contains the
results and syntheses of work from the Petexbatun Re-
gional Archaeological Project, a 7-year multidisciplinary
investigation into the causes of the Mayan collapse.

As the title of this volume suggests, Lori Wright eval-

uates the evidence for an environmental explanation of
the Classic-period Mayan collapse. To this end, she ana-
lyzes mortuary, bone chemical, and paleopathological
data from 261 human burials recovered from nine
archaeological sites spanning the entire Classic period
(900 BC–AD 950) in the Pasio´n region of the western
Guatemalan lowlands. Wright argues that in many cases
the evidence, especially the skeletal data, used to sup-
port theoretical models of the Mayan collapse has been
misinterpreted. By drawing on multiple lines of evi-
dence, she asserts, accurate assessment of these appa-
rently opposing theories is possible. The body of the
work begins with descriptions of the cultural history of
the Pasio´n region and the potential influences of sam-
pling bias on the excavated skeletal material, a theme
that she returns to in her consideration of each set of
results. A description of skeletal demography by site and
period and the results of mortuary analyses follow.

Over the course of the next several chapters, Wright pro-

vides discussions, analyses, and descriptions of dietary
chemistry among the Pasio´n Maya, beginning with a
detailed overview of the theoretical foundations of the use
of elemental and isotopic data in bioarchaeology. She also
conducts a series of focused analyses designed to define the
elements and isotopes that contributed to the prehistoric
diet, including the potential influence of alkaline processing
of maize. Dietary chemistry has been extensively employed
to evaluate diet and migration patterns throughout the
Maya area. Wright builds upon prior studies, highlighting
some of their methodological shortcomings and how these
affected results to provide new interpretations of Mayan di-
etary complexity and social behavior. According to an envi-
ronmental model, the contribution of cultigens should be
similar across sites and increase over time, except among
elites. The results of her analyses are contrary to these
expectations and instead indicate that the number of culti-
gens in the diet varied dramatically between sites, through
time, and across social classes.

The last three chapters examine the distribution of

enamel hypoplasias, periosteal reactions, and porotic
hyperostoses in the skeletal samples as a measure of
overall health and disease burden in the population. An
environmental model of decline would similarly predict
skeletal markers of stress and disease to have similar
prevalence across sites and increase over time—except
among elites—as diet and health decline. However,
Wright’s data demonstrate significant differences in pa-
thology between sites and through time. The final chap-
ter synthesizes all of the data. Wright concludes that sig-
nificant heterogeneity existed in diet, health, and social
structure among the Pasio´n Maya and that there is little
evidence to support the hypothesis that environmental
degradation played a significant role in the collapse and
abandonment of the southern lowlands. This work is im-
portant because it counters one of the foundations of the
environmental explanation, the paleopathological analy-
sis conducted by Frank Saul in the early seventies on
skeletons recovered from Altar de Sacrificios. Wright
uses new techniques, a more refined understanding of

138

BOOK REVIEWS

American Journal of Physical Anthropology—DOI 10.1002/ajpa

social distinctions, and a regional approach to counter
these previous suppositions.

This volume is ideally suited for a professional audi-

ence. It contains a great deal of information presented in
a traditional academic style and covers several relatively
technical topics in detail. It would also be useful as a
resource for students as an example of a multidiscipli-
nary approach to a broad research question. Wright does
an excellent job presenting a large amount of complex
data. Her descriptions of the arguments, each analysis,
and the final synthesis are well constructed, logically
organized, and provide a cohesive flow throughout the
work. I feel the book could be strengthened by the addi-
tion of basic visual aids (e.g., maps, site plans), which
would assist the reader in placing the sites and their
burial

samples

in

the

larger

geographic

context.

Granted, the preceding volume in this series presents
these materials, but I believe the strength of Wright’s
volume is its ability to stand alone and provide the inter-
ested reader with independent data, arguments, and
conclusions.

In Diet, Health, and Status among the Pasio´n Maya,

Lori Wright aptly considers information from the dimen-
sions of mortuary analysis, dietary chemistry, and paleo-

pathology from burials of the Classic-period Pasio´n
Maya and synthesizes this data into a cohesive test of
traditional environmental explanations of the Maya col-
lapse in the southern lowlands. She offers compelling
evidence that there is a great deal of heterogeneity in
diet, health, and social status within and between sites
in the region, as well as over time, and that this inher-
ent heterogeneity does not support an environmental
model for Mayan collapse during the Classic period. This
book provides more fuel for the ongoing debate about
what factors led to the demise of one of the ancient
world’s greatest civilizations.

J

AMES

T. W

ATSON

Department of Anthropology
Indiana University–Purdue University
Indianapolis
Indianapolis, Indiana

DOI 10.1002/ajpa.20627
Published online 15 May 2007 in Wiley InterScience

(www.interscience.wiley.com).

139

BOOK REVIEWS

American Journal of Physical Anthropology—DOI 10.1002/ajpa