Traces Of Malaria Were Discovered In 36 Ancient Individuals Across Five Different Continents, Moving The Oldest Physical Evidence Of This Disease Back To 5,600 Years Ago In Germany
One of the deadliest diseases in the world is malaria. It infects 250 million people and kills 600,000 people every year. For a long time, the parasite-caused disease has been part of the human experience.
Now, researchers have finally revealed more about the history of malaria and how it spread.
A team of researchers discovered traces of malaria in 36 ancient individuals found across 26 archaeological sites on five different continents. Typically, diseases like malaria don’t leave physical traces in ancient remains, which makes them difficult to detect.
According to Christina Warinner, a co-author of the study and an archaeogeneticist at Harvard University, malaria is “invisible archaeologically.”
However, new techniques for analyzing genetic samples have helped researchers find tiny fragments of the parasitic DNA within the bones and teeth of those who were infected with malaria.
Previously, the oldest physical evidence of malaria came from a blood sample that was collected in 1944 from the Ebro Delta in Spain.
The latest research puts the existence of malaria farther back, to 5,600 years ago in Germany. That was the age of the oldest skeleton the scientists found. They also encountered the remains of a man who died of malaria about 2,800 years ago in the Himalayas.
His body was located 9,100 feet above sea level. They were surprised to see traces of malaria in the man because the environment was too cold for the mosquitoes that spread the disease.
The man was uncovered near an ancient trading route that passed through the Himalayas. At the archaeological site, there were also copper objects made in the lowlands of India, where malaria and mosquitoes were common. The researchers suspect that he got infected while traveling. Then, he returned home and died.
Gorodenkoff – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
By combining these types of individual cases with broader historical knowledge about malaria, they were able to see the course of malaria throughout history for a longer stretch of time than before.
Across Europe, from the Stone Age to the 18th century, samples containing a malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium vivax, were identified. This showed that malaria was not just a tropical disease in the prehistoric era.
In addition, the findings debunked the theory that malaria was from Polynesians who arrived around 15,000 years ago and instead supported the idea that European colonization brought malaria to the Americas.
The earliest malaria sample from the Americas was found in a Peruvian skeleton of a person who lived 500 years ago in the Andes Mountains.
More recent strains of malaria from America resemble a version known as Plasmodium falciparum in sub-Saharan Africa, suggesting that this parasite was carried across the Atlantic by enslaved people.
Overall, the results of the study indicate that movement and travel across different regions contributed to the spread of malaria. In the future, it is hoped that DNA can be used to reconstruct the histories of other pathogens.
The study was published in the journal Nature.
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