punches. Bone erosion observed in the photographs of a 4000 years skeleton are compatible with leprosy.
Gwen Robbins et al., PLoS ONE , 4.5 (May 09)
Leprosy has been with us much longer than we thought. In a new study, researchers report the discovery of a skeleton 4000 years in India with the devastation characteristic of the disease. The discovery pushes back the origins of leprosy at least 1500 years and gives clues on how the disease spread worldwide.
Until now, the earliest evidence widely accepted for leprosy was from South Asian texts dating from the 6th century BC, which refer to the characteristic numbness in fingers and toes of sufferers. Leprosy begins by attacking the skin and peripheral nerves, but may eventually eat its way into the bone. Final skeletal evidence earlier of Egypt in the 2nd century B.C.E. The Vedas, the sacred writings of Hinduism, mention what could be leprosy in the late second millennium B.C.E.
Now it seems that the Vedic texts were accurate. A team of Indian and American scientists reports online today in PLoS ONE find signs of leprosy in a skeleton buried there about 4000 years in northeast India.
The skeleton was found at a site called Balathal Rajasthan excavations. There, a settlement of people lived copper-work in stone or mud brick huts and grew barley. The bones were buried in the ashes of cow dung in an enclosure with thick stone wall on the edge of the colony. Radiocarbon dating shows the skeleton, a man in his late 30s, was buried between 2500 and 00 B.C.E. Although the skeleton was fragmented, the researchers found that the erosion and pitting of the bones around the nose and cheeks, and in the ribs, vertebrae and limbs. The loss of bone around the nose and the destruction of the nasal spine is a characteristic of leprosy, say the authors, led by anthropologist Gwen Robbins from Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.
The authors say they could exclude the other most likely explanations for the state of man, namely, tuberculosis or a bone infection. TB involves osteoporosis in the spine; there was no sign of the death of bone tissue caused by infection.
The report highlights where leprosy appeared and how it found its place in the world. A genomic analysis in 05 suggested ( Science NOW, 12 May 05) that the disease could have the first broadcast with the emergence of modern humans in East Africa; Other researchers have suggested more recent origins. The authors emphasize the notion that leprosy appeared in the 3rd millennium BC, perhaps in India, urbanization and trade routes have increased, because the close contact between humans is necessary for the transmission of the disease .
Ron Pinhasi, a biological anthropologist who studies paleopathology at University College Cork in Ireland agrees with this interpretation. "The case ... Balathal fits our scenario and is an important contribution to current knowledge," he said.
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