A morphological and molecular approach to investigating infectious disease in early medieval Iberia: The necropolis of La Olmeda (Palencia, Spain).

Autor: Coppola Bove L; Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.; Department of Legal Medicine, Toxicology and Physical Anthropology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Granada, Granada, Spain., Kirkpatrick CL; Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.; Department of Anthropology, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada., Vigil-Escalera Guirado A; Department of Humanities: History, Geography and Art, University Carlos III de Madrid, Madrid, Spain., Botella López MC; Department of Legal Medicine, Toxicology and Physical Anthropology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Granada, Granada, Spain., Bos KI; Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: American journal of biological anthropology [Am J Biol Anthropol] 2024 Sep; Vol. 185 (1), pp. e24994. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Jul 04.
DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.24994
Abstrakt: Objective: Here we investigate infectious diseases that potentially contribute to osteological lesions in individuals from the early medieval necropolis of La Olmeda (6th-11th c. CE) in North Iberia.
Materials and Methods: We studied a minimum number of 268 individuals (33 adult females; 38 adult males, 77 unknown/indeterminate sex; and 120 non-adults), including articulated and commingled remains. Individuals with differential diagnoses suggesting chronic systemic infectious diseases were sampled and bioinformatically screened for ancient pathogen DNA.
Results: Five non-adults (and no adults) presented skeletal evidence of chronic systemic infectious disease (1.87% of the population; 4.67% of non-adults). The preferred diagnoses for these individuals included tuberculosis, brucellosis, and malaria. Ancient DNA fragments assigned to the malaria-causing pathogen, Plasmodium spp., were identified in three of the five individuals. Observed pathology includes lesions generally consistent with malaria; however, additional lesions in two of the individuals may represent hitherto unknown variation in the skeletal manifestation of this disease or co-infection with tuberculosis or brucellosis. Additionally, spondylolysis was observed in one individual with skeletal lesions suggestive of infectious disease.
Conclusions: This study sheds light on the pathological landscape in Iberia during a time of great social, demographic, and environmental change. Genetic evidence challenges the hypothesis that malaria was absent from early medieval Iberia and demonstrates the value of combining osteological and archaeogenetic methods. Additionally, all of the preferred infectious diagnoses for the individuals included in this study (malaria, tuberculosis, and brucellosis) could have contributed to the febrile cases described in historical sources from this time.
(© 2024 The Author(s). American Journal of Biological Anthropology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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