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https://www.yahoo.com/news/dna-offers-hard-evidence-malaria-roman-empire-232315451.html

Miami (AFP) - A DNA analysis of 2,000-year-old teeth unearthed from an Italian graveyard has offered hard evidence that malaria existed during the Roman Empire, researchers said Monday.

The findings are based on mitochondrial DNA -- genetic material inherited from one's mother -- extracted from teeth belonging to 58 adults and 10 children at three imperial-period Italian cemeteries, their report in the journal Current Biology said.

Two of the adults in the cemeteries, which date to the 1st and 3rd centuries, were found to have genomic evidence of malaria.

Specifically, it was the kind that today causes disease from the parasite Plasmodium falciparum.

"There is extensive written evidence describing fevers that sound like malaria in ancient Greece and Rome, but the specific malaria species responsible is unknown," said Stephanie Marciniak of Pennsylvania State University.

"Our data confirm that the species was likely Plasmodium falciparum, and that it affected people in different ecological and cultural environments."

Malaria currently kills nearly 450,000 people every year, the majority of them children under the age of five.

Researchers still do not know much about malaria in the Roman Empire, including whether it was a native disease or sporadically imported.

The first DNA evidence of malaria in ancient Rome was detected in 2001 in the skeleton of a child estimated to be 1,500 years old.

The latest study suggests malaria was more widespread than previously known.

"Malaria was likely a significant historical pathogen that caused widespread death in ancient Rome," said study author Hendrik Poinar, director of McMaster's University Ancient DNA Centre.

That is interesting. About the only useful thing Jared Diamond had to offer historians was a rather detailed genetic history of malaria, and I do so like seeing that go flying out the window into the realm of wrong with the rest of his book

It would explain why the Romans were keen to get to Britain, so they could dance with the Druids at Stonehenge*

*You can still dance with them, subject to a small transaction fee and the relevant Health and Safety checks, of course

On a serious note, not that big a revelation to be honest, because malaria was a big problem in Italy not that long ago, and is well documented in the medieval and renaissance era, so the Romans having it is no surprise...

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
It would explain why the Romans were keen to get to Britain, so they could dance with the Druids at Stonehenge*

*You can still dance with them, subject to a small transaction fee and the relevant Health and Safety checks, of course

On a serious note, not that big a revelation to be honest, because malaria was a big problem in Italy not that long ago, and is well documented in the medieval and renaissance era, so the Romans having it is no surprise...

It might be a bigger deal than you suspect

Malaria was a disease as capable of scouring people off the earth as easily as the plague(s), but unlike the plague which had a tendency to burn hot and fast through large human populations (or hide in smaller populations in the desert before returning to torment Baghdad a century later), Malaria is carried and transmitted completely by a non-human actor who practically evolved to pray on humans. This is a disease that profoundly shaped the colonization of South and Central America (after Europeans imported the disease to the New World), as well as the history of Africa.

Finding out its even older than we thought it was could force a reexamination of some major events in Roman history. If Malaria existed in the Empire, there's no way Rome wasn't dealing with outbreaks regularly. Mosquitoes breed in standing water, which will always be found in the middle of large human settlement.

Wait Malaria wasn't in the Americas before?

 Frazzled wrote:
Wait Malaria wasn't in the Americas before?

No*. Malaria is born of microbes that are native to the Old World, not the New.

*Tag that with "as far as anyone knows" The Mayans and the Aztecs did have medical texts, and those we have before us make no reference to any disease we can discern as being Malaria. Europeans (or possibly their West African slaves/servants) brought the disease to the New World, either by transporting their mosquitoes with them, or by carrying the disease that was then picked up by New World Mosquitoes. As in the above, you can genetically trace the diseases in someone's system as much as their own DNA, and no evidence has been found thus far that Malaria existed in the Americas before Columbian contact.

A very good book for this subject is J.R. McNeill's Mosquito Empires, and Daniel Richter's Facing East from Indian Country which goes a little bit into the subject.

 LordofHats wrote:

Malaria was a disease as capable of scouring people off the earth as easily as the plague(s),

That really depends on the 'strain' of Malaria, there are 5 main species of the Plasmodium parasite and its only P.falciparum (the 'African' one) that's really nasty. The others aren't exactly fun but they aren't likely to kill you. However P.falciparum was prevalent in parts of Italy until its near eradication during the early 20th century so its quite possible that it was rumbling along in the region for millennia but that doesn't necessarily mean that the Roman Empire was noticeably affected by it.

I should probably have read the actual article

Malaria did come from Africa.

Analysis of genetic material extracted showed that the American P. falciparum is a close cousin of its African counterpart. In addition, two separate genetic groups exist in Latin America, as a result of two distinct slave routes, one towards the Spanish empire in the North – West Indies and present-day Mexico and Colombia

The actual article doesn't mention any of that XD (though it is interesting to know). I've read about multiple species of Mosquito, and multiple strands of Malaria (EDIT: as in the parasite that causes it), but I didn't know they varied in lethality.

 LordofHats wrote:
The actual article doesn't mention any of that XD

I meant the identification of the particular species

The other species are much milder and are more limited in their range (P.ovale is associated with SE Asian while P.vivax is associated with S.America for example) but that's changing due to all the traveling that we do today.

Fun facts:
Syphilis used to be successfully treated with deliberate infection with malaria (either due to the intense fever or a heightened immune response to the malarial infection killing of the bacteria). It was very much a case of 'kill or cure' though...

Sickle cell disease is actually an evolutionary adaption to evade malaria (the sickle shaped red blood cells can't be infected by the parasite).

Anti malarials don't actually stop you getting malaria but you should always (always) take them if you are going to a malarious area as they reduce your risk of infection and will significantly reduce it's severity. Western Europeans/most Americans have no immunity to Malaria so there is a very real risk of death if you don't take your prophylaxis.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
It would explain why the Romans were keen to get to Britain, so they could dance with the Druids at Stonehenge*

*You can still dance with them, subject to a small transaction fee and the relevant Health and Safety checks, of course

On a serious note, not that big a revelation to be honest, because malaria was a big problem in Italy not that long ago, and is well documented in the medieval and renaissance era, so the Romans having it is no surprise...

It might be a bigger deal than you suspect

Malaria was a disease as capable of scouring people off the earth as easily as the plague(s), but unlike the plague which had a tendency to burn hot and fast through large human populations (or hide in smaller populations in the desert before returning to torment Baghdad a century later), Malaria is carried and transmitted completely by a non-human actor who practically evolved to pray on humans. This is a disease that profoundly shaped the colonization of South and Central America (after Europeans imported the disease to the New World), as well as the history of Africa.

Finding out its even older than we thought it was could force a reexamination of some major events in Roman history. If Malaria existed in the Empire, there's no way Rome wasn't dealing with outbreaks regularly. Mosquitoes breed in standing water, which will always be found in the middle of large human settlement.

Isn't there also that theory about the Romans being driven mad because of all the lead water pipes they used, and therefore, suffered from lead poisoning as well?

So, if both theories are correct, Malaria and Lead stunted the Romans, and yet, they built a massive empire, and gave us laws and great literature, and they were only operating at 50%?

I have read that thing about the lead, but I have no idea if that's true or just one of those things that gets repeated. I'm always suspicious of history trivia I've heard that I've never seen in something peer reviewed, so I'm not sure XD

My understanding is that Malaria wasn't widely recognized or discussed by Europeans until the Colonial Era, and it's always been treated as a relatively modern disease. If it is older, and it afflicted the Romans it probably hit the Greeks, Egyptians, Persians, and Babylonians as well. The Middle East 3000 years ago was greener than it is now, and closer to a sub-Saharan climate one might expect to find in West Africa. Once upon a time Lions, Elephants, and Hippos just to name a few were native to the Middle East and their existence is recorded alongside that of pine and cedar forests in human records.

There's ongoing debate (kind of hot too) over whether the current topography of the Middle East owes more to natural climate shifts or human action.There's actually still a few of Lebanon's old growth still alive on top of a mountain, now called the Cedars of God, that are the last living remnants of the region's original forests. Much of the remaining wood was wiped out by the Ottoman's to build railroads.

Anyway, point being if Malaria is older than we think it could have far reaching implications because the ancient world was arguably offered mosquitoes a wider natural range than today. Though how well we'll ever understand them is a toss up. One of the reasons Malaria thrived so well in the New World was a combination of beating out other similar microbes, and the ease with which mosquitoes adapt to man made landscapes (particularly our irrigation systems). We have a bad habit of both making it easier for them to breed, and scaring/killing their natural predators away. Disease plays a big role in history where we can pin it down, but the further back you go the harder it becomes to pin anything down. Especially in the Middle East for that matter (thanks Genghis ya book burning dick )

Trippy, and not in the good way.

 LordofHats wrote:
Disease plays a big role in history where we can pin it down, but the further back you go the harder it becomes to pin anything down.

It definitely does; all kinds of historical events have been driven by disease and the human genome still bears the scars of battles with past pathogens, but at the same time the prevalence of disease has stayed relatively constant before the widespread use of western medicine, antibiotics and sanitation. Obviously the local prevelence of disease changes due to various factors such as location, population density and the like and period epidemics have always been a feature of human history but I would be wary of linking the fortunes of, for example, the Roman Empire with a specific disease especially as populations exposed to a disease over a long period of time will develop at least a degree of immunity.

Malaria is an ancient pathogen; to the extent that at least 2 diseases, sickle cell anaemia and thalaseaemia, are actually adaptions to guard against malaria (even though they will kill people who are homozygous for the respective genes). That sort of adaption doesn't happen overnight and because they are often lethal it shows just how much of a burden malaria has been historically.

I always gets scared when researches like this are reported on by mainstream media.
Before you know it the whole fall of the Roman Empire is being blamed on malaria just to scare us and make us donate more to fighting malaria.

Also, I haven't read the research report, but finding 2 skeletons with traces of malaria in a Roman cemetery and then concluding:
"Malaria was likely a significant historical pathogen that caused widespread death in ancient Rome" seems overly sensationalist and jumping to conclusions to me.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
I always gets scared when researches like this are reported on by mainstream media.
Before you know it the whole fall of the Roman Empire is being blamed on malaria just to scare us and make us donate more to fighting malaria.

Also, I haven't read the research report, but finding 2 skeletons with traces of malaria in a Roman cemetery and then concluding:
"Malaria was likely a significant historical pathogen that caused widespread death in ancient Rome" seems overly sensationalist and jumping to conclusions to me.

That because we know how malaria works (namely we know how much mosquitoes love being around people, and how easily they spread in man made environments).

Rome was an unusually large population center for its time. Surrounding cities were also quite large. At it's peak Roman Italy sported one of the highest population densities on Earth, with Roman being the highest population city in the world (if only because Chinese cities were kind of starving to death at the time...). I doubt anyone will be arguing anything silly like "malaria caused the fall of the Roman Empire" but you don't just find malaria as an outlier.

 LordofHats wrote:
Disease plays a big role in history where we can pin it down, but the further back you go the harder it becomes to pin anything down. Especially in the Middle East for that matter (thanks Genghis ya book burning dick )

Didn't you in the first response say that Jared Diamond was full of gak? But here, you're kinda giving him credit

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Disease plays a big role in history where we can pin it down, but the further back you go the harder it becomes to pin anything down. Especially in the Middle East for that matter (thanks Genghis ya book burning dick )

Didn't you in the first response say that Jared Diamond was full of gak? But here, you're kinda giving him credit

It's a very love hate relationship

 LordofHats wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Disease plays a big role in history where we can pin it down, but the further back you go the harder it becomes to pin anything down. Especially in the Middle East for that matter (thanks Genghis ya book burning dick )

Didn't you in the first response say that Jared Diamond was full of gak? But here, you're kinda giving him credit

It's a very love hate relationship

Lol, I hear ya. It seems even my professors are about the same as you: from their perspectives, he provides an interesting means of approaching history, but that's about it.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Wait Malaria wasn't in the Americas before?

No*. Malaria is born of microbes that are native to the Old World, not the New.

*Tag that with "as far as anyone knows" The Mayans and the Aztecs did have medical texts, and those we have before us make no reference to any disease we can discern as being Malaria. Europeans (or possibly their West African slaves/servants) brought the disease to the New World, either by transporting their mosquitoes with them, or by carrying the disease that was then picked up by New World Mosquitoes. As in the above, you can genetically trace the diseases in someone's system as much as their own DNA, and no evidence has been found thus far that Malaria existed in the Americas before Columbian contact.

A very good book for this subject is J.R. McNeill's Mosquito Empires, and Daniel Richter's Facing East from Indian Country which goes a little bit into the subject.

Learning has occurred with me as well on this. I just thought it was over here before the "discovery" as well. Damned imports!

Well there's no real denying that Diamond took up a monumental task in Guns, Germs, and Steel, and he really does point to a lot of the "big world changing" themes that are important in history and elaborates on why they matter.

It's just that everything else is so very wrong XD J.R. McNeill has a very good review of the book called "The World According to Jared Diamond" that I think sums up both the books useful tid bits while getting to the point of why it's larger point has fallen on deaf ears. Basically, Diamond wrote a huge book to support a series of simple answers to problems of infinite complexity that relied on dumbing down literally all of human history into a copy paste of the kind of racist 1920s history that Diamond opens his book protesting. Basically he lost the forest through the trees but he grew some really nice trees