Scientists studying 4,000-year-old skeletons in northern Chile have found genetic traces of Mycobacterium lepromatosis, one of the bacteria that causes leprosy. Experts previously thought leprosy only arrived in the Americas with European colonisers, but this discovery shows it was already present there thousands of years earlier.
The two skeletons showed signs of a leprosy-like illness, and DNA analysis confirmed the ancient strain was quite different from the leprosy-causing bacteria common in Eurasia.
The findings suggest leprosy may have arrived in the Americas with early human migrations or evolved in a local animal species. Researchers now know that the disease has a deeper history on the continent than anyone realised, but they don’t yet know where it came from or which animals might have carried it. The study changes our understanding of disease history in the Americas and highlights the need to keep searching for hidden pathogens in ancient remains. Read the article here: Two 4,000-Year-Old Skeletons in Chile Just Upended What We Know About the Origins of Leprosy.