(meaning not sexually transmitted) treponemal infection that was related to syphilis. There is no evidence, however, that either disease was at all widespread in either North or South America. Recent studies conducted in great detail show that large-scale sedentary societies in the Americas, where such diseases could have taken hold, did not. According to studies of ancient small-scale migratory societies, even those in such harsh environments as those of the frigid northwestern plains, show that they consisted of people who seem to have lived long lives without significant infectious conditions or even much serious injury. In addition, there was an apparently limited range of potentially serious diseases among the indigenous peoples of the Americas. What diseases there were consisted primarily of gastrointestinal disease and various minor infections, and even these had been mitigated by thousands of years of exposure to them, as well as by generally beneficent living conditions and more than adequate nutrition (Sta
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