Ancient feces reveal how 'marsh diet' left Bronze Age Fen folk infected with parasites
Credit: Marissa Ledger
Posted on 08/22/2019 5:50:31 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
New research published today in the journal Parasitology shows how the prehistoric inhabitants of a settlement in the freshwater marshes of eastern England were infected by intestinal worms caught from foraging for food in the lakes and waterways around their homes.
The Bronze Age settlement at Must Farm, located near what is now the fenland city of Peterborough, consisted of wooden houses built on stilts above the water. Wooden causeways connected islands in the marsh, and dugout canoes were used to travel along water channels.
The village burnt down in a catastrophic fire around 3,000 years ago, with artefacts from the houses preserved in mud below the waterline, including food, cloth, and jewellery. The site has been called "Britain's Pompeii".
Also preserved in the surrounding mud were waterlogged "coprolites" -- pieces of human faeces -- that have now been collected and analysed by archaeologists at the University of Cambridge. They used microscopy techniques to detect ancient parasite eggs within the faeces and surrounding sediment...
Disposal of human and animal waste into the water around the settlement likely prevented direct faecal pollution of the fenlanders' food, and so prevented infection from roundworm -- the eggs of which have been found at Bronze Age sites across Europe.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
Ancient feces reveal how 'marsh diet' left Bronze Age Fen folk infected with parasites
Credit: Marissa Ledger
that’s Really interesting
I saw a program om “The History Channel” about the largest battle ever fought in Britain.
Most people including me had never heard of it. They examined some of the bones etc. from the mass grave.
A few things surprised me. First they had excellent teeth. Second their diet was better than ours. They somehow calculated that from testing bones.
“In the Journal Parasitology”
Huh.
A magazine about parasites.
Bernie Sanders is an editor.
So they were digging through crap?
Enhancing that law school application.
These pics look like the parasites, not the feces.
Its always the same old shit
All dead
It’s far worse in San Francisco.
It’s far worse in San Francisco.
Listen, if you want to see pictures of turds, go look at the Harvard Faculty Directory.
This is Free Republic.
But the monkeys throwing it are new.
What are there, like 18 Democrat Presidential Candidate monkeys left?
Is it because of high rainfall in the upland areas, causing a whole lot of freshwater pouring down toward the North Sea and the English Channel?
Is it affected by possibly (I'm guessing) great rivers like the Rhine and others, also dumping water into the North Sea and the English Channel, making them less saline (?) than the water of the open Atlantic?
Someone enlighten me, please.
Hey!
We’re having a serious discussion about English turds here!
Don’t come busting into this discussion with your questions about water!
You want to know about water?
It’s wet.
Why is it salty?
Because giants make Margaritas in the English Channel.
That’s why.
Marsh! Marsh! Marsh!
“A few things surprised me. First they had excellent teeth.”
Must have been before the Great Anti-Dentite purges.
Refined sugar has ruined teeth.
Smock smock smock!
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