New DNA evidence may help lay the argument to rest. Ancient human bones from the Americas that predate Columbus contain genomes of bacteria from the syphilis disease family say researchers. Three diseases including syphillis are caused by strains of the bacteria Treponema pallidum While syphilis disease is widespread, the others are restricted to the tropics (yaws and bejel) Molecular paleopathology researchers from Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology were able to reconstruct five genomes from a hip bone from Argentina, a lower leg bone from Chile, upper and lower leg bones from Mexico, and a tooth from Peru. Their results were published in the respected journal Nature. They traced back the bacteria genomes to a common ancestor that existed 9,000 years ago. Then, the New World was already widely populated by humans who had not yet interacted with European cultures. While the debate may continue in the light of this new evidence, it does explain a great deal about how the disease originated and spread to other parts of the world.