Tracking the Origins of Malaria

DUNEDIN, NEW ZEALAND—According to a statement from the University of Otago, bioarchaeologists working on human remains from a 7,000-year-old hunter-gatherer site in Vietnam have found evidence that malaria afflicted human populations earlier than was previously known. The spread of malaria among humans has long been linked to the development of farming and the introduction of irrigation and slash and burn agriculture, both of which created new breeding grounds of stagnant water for the mosquitoes that carry the infectious disease. This new research, however, indicates that in at least Southeast Asia the disease predates the advent of agriculture, said University of Otago bioarchaeologist Melandri Vlok. She led a team that found some of the bones from the Vietnamese site bore microscopic evidence of thalassemia, an inherited blood disorder that provides resistance to malaria and is thought to have become prevalent in humans as an adaptive response to the disease. The team’s findings show that people in Southeast Asia were likely suffering from malaria well before they gave up their hunter-gatherer lifestyle. For more on skeletal evidence of ancient maladies go to “Dawn of a Disease.”