[Mr Radical]

Interesting - thanks!
I definitely remember the guide pointing out lesions on the bones that he said indicated syphilis, but I can't remember now which part of the skeleton (the skull or legs, or indeed both).

I revisited the subject just now, it seems these might not be possible to distinguish from other treponemal [you learn a new word every day] diseases such as bejel.

Folks travelled in Roman times - the cemetery at Baldock, England, apparently included at least two suspected sub-Saharan Africans, perhaps where the population would have been exposed to bejel?

The Rothschild's article was from 1997; it seems in 2011 the research still had a way to go:
Morbus gallicus in the Roman Empire
Perhaps since then someone has done the DNA bit?

background to the cemetery:
The Cemeteries of Roman Baldock

i must get back to work, now, FRegards.

[SunkenCiv]

There's always an agenda to put some kind of evil spin on all things European -- it is nothing but transparent racism -- but there's no science to support it. The long-apparent connection between the most recent discovery of the Americas and the arrival of syphilis in Ye Olde Worlde has been verified. What's interesting to me is, the disease is attributed to a mutation calculated to have arisen about 8000 years ago, IOW, long after Beringia was reflooded.

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

"... two suspected sub-Saharan Africans ..."

Did they find their birth certificates?