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Houldcroft CJ, Underdown S. Infectious disease in the Pleistocene: Old friends or old foes? AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 2023; 182:513-531. [PMID: 38006200 DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.24737] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/12/2022] [Revised: 03/01/2023] [Accepted: 03/14/2023] [Indexed: 11/26/2023]
Abstract
The impact of endemic and epidemic disease on humans has traditionally been seen as a comparatively recent historical phenomenon associated with the Neolithisation of human groups, an increase in population size led by sedentarism, and increasing contact with domesticated animals as well as species occupying opportunistic symbiotic and ectosymbiotic relationships with humans. The orthodox approach is that Neolithisation created the conditions for increasing population size able to support a reservoir of infectious disease sufficient to act as selective pressure. This orthodoxy is the result of an overly simplistic reliance on skeletal data assuming that no skeletal lesions equated to a healthy individual, underpinned by the assumption that hunter-gatherer groups were inherently healthy while agricultural groups acted as infectious disease reservoirs. The work of van Blerkom, Am. J. Phys. Anthropol., vol. suppl 37 (2003), Wolfe et al., Nature, vol. 447 (2007) and Houldcroft and Underdown, Am. J. Phys. Anthropol., vol. 160, (2016) has changed this landscape by arguing that humans and pathogens have long been fellow travelers. The package of infectious diseases experienced by our ancient ancestors may not be as dissimilar to modern infectious diseases as was once believed. The importance of DNA, from ancient and modern sources, to the study of the antiquity of infectious disease, and its role as a selective pressure cannot be overstated. Here we consider evidence of ancient epidemic and endemic infectious diseases with inferences from modern and ancient human and hominin DNA, and from circulating and extinct pathogen genomes. We argue that the pandemics of the past are a vital tool to unlock the weapons needed to fight pandemics of the future.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Simon Underdown
- Human Origins and Palaeoenvironmental Research Group, School of Social Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
- Center for Microbial Ecology and Genomics, Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Microbiology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
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Ávila-Arcos MC, Raghavan M, Schlebusch C. Going local with ancient DNA: A review of human histories from regional perspectives. Science 2023; 382:53-58. [PMID: 37797024 DOI: 10.1126/science.adh8140] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/27/2023] [Accepted: 09/05/2023] [Indexed: 10/07/2023]
Abstract
Ancient DNA (aDNA) has added a wealth of information about our species' history, including insights on genetic origins, migrations and gene flow, genetic admixture, and health and disease. Much early work has focused on continental-level questions, leaving many regional questions, especially those relevant to the Global South, comparatively underexplored. A few success stories of aDNA studies from smaller laboratories involve more local aspects of human histories and health in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. In this Review, we cover some of these contributions by synthesizing finer-scale questions of importance to the archaeogenetics field, as well as to Indigenous and Descendant communities. We further highlight the potential of aDNA to uncover past histories in regions where colonialism has neglected the oral histories of oppressed peoples.
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Affiliation(s)
- María C Ávila-Arcos
- International Laboratory for Human Genome Research, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Querétaro, Mexico
| | - Maanasa Raghavan
- Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
| | - Carina Schlebusch
- Human Evolution, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
- Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
- SciLifeLab, Uppsala, Sweden
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Rifkin RF, Vikram S, Alcorta J, Ramond JB, Cowan DA, Jakobsson M, Schlebusch CM, Lombard M. Rickettsia felis DNA recovered from a child who lived in southern Africa 2000 years ago. Commun Biol 2023; 6:240. [PMID: 36869137 PMCID: PMC9984395 DOI: 10.1038/s42003-023-04582-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2020] [Accepted: 02/13/2023] [Indexed: 03/05/2023] Open
Abstract
The Stone Age record of South Africa provides some of the earliest evidence for the biological and cultural origins of Homo sapiens. While there is extensive genomic evidence for the selection of polymorphisms in response to pathogen-pressure in sub-Saharan Africa, e.g., the sickle cell trait which provides protection against malaria, there is inadequate direct human genomic evidence for ancient human-pathogen infection in the region. Here, we analysed shotgun metagenome libraries derived from the sequencing of a Later Stone Age hunter-gatherer child who lived near Ballito Bay, South Africa, c. 2000 years ago. This resulted in the identification of ancient DNA sequence reads homologous to Rickettsia felis, the causative agent of typhus-like flea-borne rickettsioses, and the reconstruction of an ancient R. felis genome.
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Affiliation(s)
- Riaan F Rifkin
- Centre for Microbial Ecology and Genomics, Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Microbiology, University of Pretoria, Hatfield, South Africa.
- Department of Anthropology and Geography, Human Origins and Palaeoenvironmental Research Group, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK.
| | - Surendra Vikram
- Centre for Microbial Ecology and Genomics, Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Microbiology, University of Pretoria, Hatfield, South Africa
| | - Jaime Alcorta
- Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Jean-Baptiste Ramond
- Centre for Microbial Ecology and Genomics, Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Microbiology, University of Pretoria, Hatfield, South Africa
- Department of Anthropology and Geography, Human Origins and Palaeoenvironmental Research Group, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
- Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Don A Cowan
- Centre for Microbial Ecology and Genomics, Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Microbiology, University of Pretoria, Hatfield, South Africa
| | - Mattias Jakobsson
- Department of Organismal Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen, Uppsala, Sweden
- Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park, South Africa
- SciLifeLab, Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Carina M Schlebusch
- Department of Organismal Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen, Uppsala, Sweden
- Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park, South Africa
- SciLifeLab, Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Marlize Lombard
- Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park, South Africa.
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Ancient DNA and deep population structure in sub-Saharan African foragers. Nature 2022; 603:290-296. [PMID: 35197631 PMCID: PMC8907066 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04430-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2021] [Accepted: 01/14/2022] [Indexed: 12/16/2022]
Abstract
Multiple lines of genetic and archaeological evidence suggest that there were major demographic changes in the terminal Late Pleistocene epoch and early Holocene epoch of sub-Saharan Africa1–4. Inferences about this period are challenging to make because demographic shifts in the past 5,000 years have obscured the structures of more ancient populations3,5. Here we present genome-wide ancient DNA data for six individuals from eastern and south-central Africa spanning the past approximately 18,000 years (doubling the time depth of sub-Saharan African ancient DNA), increase the data quality for 15 previously published ancient individuals and analyse these alongside data from 13 other published ancient individuals. The ancestry of the individuals in our study area can be modelled as a geographically structured mixture of three highly divergent source populations, probably reflecting Pleistocene interactions around 80–20 thousand years ago, including deeply diverged eastern and southern African lineages, plus a previously unappreciated ubiquitous distribution of ancestry that occurs in highest proportion today in central African rainforest hunter-gatherers. Once established, this structure remained highly stable, with limited long-range gene flow. These results provide a new line of genetic evidence in support of hypotheses that have emerged from archaeological analyses but remain contested, suggesting increasing regionalization at the end of the Pleistocene epoch. DNA analysis of 6 individuals from eastern and south-central Africa spanning the past approximately 18,000 years, and of 28 previously published ancient individuals, provides genetic evidence supporting hypotheses of increasing regionalization at the end of the Pleistocene.
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Pfeiffer S. Disease as a Factor in the African Archaeological Record. THE AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL REVIEW 2020; 37:487-490. [PMID: 32863518 PMCID: PMC7445818 DOI: 10.1007/s10437-020-09405-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/11/2023]
Abstract
It is clear from their natural histories that various kinds of diseases would have affected African communities in the distant past. Climatic factors may have reduced the impact of plague-like epidemics across much of the continent. Because of the link between environment and disease vectors, the presence of a disease may have been a stimulus for some group movements in the African past. Evidence of the direct effects of diseases on human populations is generally elusive. Paleopathologists can identify some endemic diseases, but evidence from Africa is sparse. Paleogenomics research can also identify some (not all) endemic and epidemic disease vectors. Recent African aDNA discoveries of inherited resistance to endemic diseases suggest that future paleogenomic research may help us learn much more about the impact of diseases on the African past.
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Affiliation(s)
- Susan Pfeiffer
- Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, 19 Ursula Franklin Street, Toronto, M5S 2S2 Canada
- Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
- Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, George Washington University, Washington, DC USA
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Houldcroft CJ, Rifkin RF, Underdown SJ. Human biology and ancient DNA: exploring disease, domestication and movement. Ann Hum Biol 2019; 46:95-98. [DOI: 10.1080/03014460.2019.1629536] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/25/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Charlotte J. Houldcroft
- Department of Medicine, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Parasites and Microbes, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK
- Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Riaan F. Rifkin
- Centre for Microbial Ecology and Genomics, Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Microbiology, University of Pretoria, Hatfield, South Africa
- Human Origins and Palaeo-Environments Research Group, Department of Anthropology and Geography, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
| | - Simon J. Underdown
- Human Origins and Palaeo-Environments Research Group, Department of Anthropology and Geography, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
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