NEW YORK (AP) — Ancient mummy DNA recovered in Chile has yielded the firmest evidence yet that European colonization brought smallpox to the Americas.
Smallpox was one of the deadliest diseases in human history before it was eradicated in 1980, largely thanks to vaccination. For centuries, the virus had killed about one-third of the people it infected and left most survivors with deep and sometimes disfiguring scars.
Outbreaks struck Asia and Europe and eventually spread to the Americas, where colonial writings, administrative records and missionary reports documented how it killed millions and devastated Indigenous populations who had never been exposed to the virus.
Now there's scientific evidence for the spread: An ******* ysis of Chilean mummies provides the strongest genetic link yet to the virus as it existed outside of the Americas, and provides a better picture of how it reached remote populations through colonization, said geneticist Shigeki Nakagome with Trinity College Dublin.
In the new study, Nakagome and colleagues examined 13 bone samples previously collected from an archaeological site at Camarones, in northern Chile.
#populations
Smallpox was one of the deadliest diseases in human history before it was eradicated in 1980, largely thanks to vaccination. For centuries, the virus had killed about one-third of the people it infected and left most survivors with deep and sometimes disfiguring scars.
Outbreaks struck Asia and Europe and eventually spread to the Americas, where colonial writings, administrative records and missionary reports documented how it killed millions and devastated Indigenous populations who had never been exposed to the virus.
Now there's scientific evidence for the spread: An ******* ysis of Chilean mummies provides the strongest genetic link yet to the virus as it existed outside of the Americas, and provides a better picture of how it reached remote populations through colonization, said geneticist Shigeki Nakagome with Trinity College Dublin.
In the new study, Nakagome and colleagues examined 13 bone samples previously collected from an archaeological site at Camarones, in northern Chile.
#populations
2 days ago
