Paleopathology

From the New York Times article "Unearthing Prehistoric Tumors, and Debate":

Often thought of as a modern disease, cancer has always been with us. Where scientists disagree is on how much it has been amplified by the sweet and bitter fruits of civilization. Over the decades archaeologists have made about 200 possible cancer sightings dating to prehistoric times. But considering the difficulties of extracting statistics from old bones, is that a little or a lot?
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As scientists continue to investigate, there may be comfort in knowing that cancer is not entirely civilization’s fault. In the normal course of life a creature’s cells must be constantly dividing — millions of times a second. Sometimes something will go wrong.

Click here to access the NYT article...interesting stuff.