Research discovers malaria devastating humans far earlier than expected

EurekAlert! ^ | March 12, 2021 | University of Otago

[SunkenCiv]

New bioarchaeological research shows malaria has threatened human communities for more than 7000 years, earlier than when the onset of farming was thought to have sparked its devastating arrival...

"Until now we've believed malaria became a global threat to humans when we turned to farming, but our research shows in at least Southeast Asia this disease was a threat to human groups well before that.

"This research providing a new cornerstone of malaria's evolution with humans is a great achievement by the entire team," Dr Vlok says...

While malaria is invisible in the archaeological record, the disease has changed the evolutionary history of human groups causing consequences visible in prehistoric skeletons. Certain genetic mutations can lead to the inheritance of Thalassemia, a devasting genetic disease that in its milder form provides some protection against malaria.

Deep in humanity's past, the genes for malaria became more common in Southeast Asia and the Pacific where it remains a threat, but up until now the origin of malaria has not been pinpointed. This research has identified thalassemia in an ancient hunter-gatherer archaeological site from Vietnam dated to approximately 7000 years ago, thousands of years before the transition to farming in the region.

In some parts of the world, slashing and burning in agricultural practice would have created pools of stagnant water attracting mosquitos carrying malaria, but in Southeast Asia these mosquitos are common forest dwellers exposing humans to the disease long before agriculture was adopted.

[Boogieman]

Umm, malaria’s a pretty big threat in Africa, and there aren’t a whole lot of farmers on that continent.

[ifinnegan]

Kindly disregard everything I’ve said.