According to this appraisal, "Skeletal evidence that reputedly showed signs of syphilis in Europe and other parts of the Old World before Christopher Columbus made his voyage in 1492 does not hold up when subjected to standardized analyses for diagnosis and dating, according to an appraisal in the current Yearbook of Physical Anthropology. The 2011 Yearbook of Physical Anthropology published an appraisal by Harper and colleagues, of previous studies and stated that the "skeletal data bolsters the case that syphilis did not exist in Europe before Columbus set sail." The scientific evidence as determined by a systematic review of 54 previously published, peer-reviewed instances lends support to the theory that syphilis was unknown in Europe until Columbus returned from the Americas. The Aztec god Nanahuatzin is often interpreted as suffering from syphilis. 536 skeletal remains in the Dominican Republic have shown evidence characteristic of treponemal disease in 6–14% of the afflicted population, which Rothschild and colleagues have postulated was syphilis. When the army disbanded shortly after the campaign, the troops, composed largely of mercenaries, returned to their homes and disseminated the disease across Europe. As Naples fell before the invading army of Charles the VIII in 1495, a plague broke out among the French leader's troops.
Columbus's first voyages to the Americas occurred three years before the Naples syphilis outbreak of 1495. This common theory holds that syphilis was a New World disease brought back by Columbus, Martín Alonso Pinzón, and/or other members of their crews as an unintentional part of the Columbian Exchange. Somewhat later, when the significance of the Western Hemisphere was perceived, it has been used in both pro- and anti-colonial discourse. European countries blamed it on each other. Its geographic origin and moral significance were debated as had never been the case with any other illness.
It is also the first disease to be widely recognized as a sexually transmitted disease, and it was taken as indicative of the moral state (sexual behavior) of the peoples in which it was found. For the time, it was "front page news" that was widely known among the literate. News of it spread quickly and widely, and documentation is abundant. Syphilis is the first "new" disease to be discovered after the invention of printing. These are referred to as the "Columbian" and "pre-Columbian" hypotheses. There are two primary hypotheses: one proposes that syphilis was carried to Europe from the Americas by the crew(s) of Christopher Columbus as a byproduct of the Columbian exchange, while the other proposes that syphilis previously existed in Europe but went unrecognized. The history of syphilis has been well studied, but the exact origin of the disease remains unknown.
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