The Oldest Virus In A Human Skeleton Was Found Still Afflicting People Today
MSN NewsPrior to the study, the oldest human virus detected was from 450 years ago.
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a major cause of human hepatitis, which afflicts over 250 million people. Now, we know that is has been infecting people for at least 4,500 years.
Research published in the journal Nature on May 9, 2018, revealed that Hepatitis B was found on skeletons from the bronze age, making it the oldest human virus ever discovered.
A team of geneticists sampled DNA from around 300 skeletons when the discovery was made. The skeletons, between 200 and 7,000 years old, were from Europe and Asia.
They found 12 HBV genomes in 12 ancient humans, which showed that the same types of HBV prevalent in Asia and Africa today were present thousands of years ago. They also found an extinct variation of the virus, though it wasn’t previously known that viruses could become extinct, the study said.
Nicole NicklischSkeletal remains of HBV positive individual from the Stone Age site of Karsdorf, Germany.
The 4,500-year-old ancient human was from the “Beaker Bell” culture in Osterhofen, Germany, named for the bell-shaped pottery cups they left behind.
Before this archaeology news, the oldest virus detected in humans dated back just 450 years. “We’re all quite excited that we can actually go [this] far back with HBV,” said Johannes Krause, an evolutionary geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for the science of Human History in Germany.
