Read Online Malaria and Rome: A History of Malaria in Ancient Italy by Robert Sallares - Free Book Online Page B

iron-deficiency anaemia, has several other possible ultimate causes besides malaria. Consequently porotic hyperostosis cannot be used as evidence for the existence or frequency of P. falciparum malaria in Europe in the Neolithic period.¹⁵ However, absence of evidence is not equivalent to evidence of absence. It still remains quite possible that it was spreading in that period. Recently the application of the techniques of molecular biology to ancient biomolecules has opened up new avenues of research. Immunological tests have been used by two different research groups to identify the histidine-rich protein-2 antigen of P. falciparum in the mummies of several predynastic individuals from Egypt, dating to c .3200 .¹⁶ This constitutes some direct evidence for the existence and activity of P. falciparum on the periphery of the Mediterranean world already in the fourth millennium . Further research into ancient biomolecules (especially DNA) from human skeletal remains excavated on archaeological sites in southern Europe offers the best prospect of obtaining direct evidence for P. falciparum malaria in Europe in prehistory.¹⁷ There was clearly some contact between Egypt and ¹⁴ M. T. Gillies in Wernsdorfer and McGregor (1988: i. 455) expressed the view that mosquito flight range is a property of the environment, not the species, depending on the availability of breeding sites and food, but it is clear that they generally do not fly far; Garrett-Jones (1962); Halawani and Shawarby (1957) on malaria in Egypt in recent times.
    ¹⁵ Angel (1966); Borza (1979), Zulueta (1987: 200), Sallares (1991: 275–7), Stuart-Macadam (1992), Grmek (1994), Corvisier (1994: 299–303), and Larsen (1997: 30–40) all agree that porotic hyperostosis does not necessarily indicate malaria.
    ¹⁶ R. L. Miller et al . (1994); Cerutti et al . (1999). cf. Marin et al. (1999).
    ¹⁷ The problem with trying to detect ancient proteins is that antibody reactions depend on the conformation of proteins. Since protein conformation would be expected to degenerate over time, it is not clear what degree of specificity could be expected in any particular antibody reaction with degraded proteins. G. M. Taylor et al . (1997) unsuccessfully tried to amplify ancient DNA from one of the same individuals studied by R. L. Miller et al . (1994), namely the Gurna mummy dating to c. 700 . There are many possible explanations for this failure. Similarly C. Plowe, reported in Parasitology Today , 14 (1998: 9) expressed scepticism about the results obtained by R. L. Miller et al . (1994). Consequently further research is need-32
    Evolution of malaria
    Greece at least as early as the Early Bronze Age in the third millennium . The most striking illustration of this contact was the construction of the small-scale imitations of Egyptian pyramids at Hellenikon and Ligourio in the Argolid in Greece, which Pausanias passed on his travels much later. Consequently it is quite possible that P. falciparum could have been transmitted directly from Egypt to Greece at that time.¹⁸
    However, there is another, even earlier, possibility. The Neolithic period commenced in Europe with the introduction of agriculture by human populations from the Near East, according to the generally convincing arguments presented in the monumental book by Cavalli-Sforza and his colleagues, a very important contribution to knowledge.¹⁹ Agriculture—specifically the cultivation of cereals and legumes—first developed in the general vicinity of modern Israel, Jordan, and Syria. These regions in antiquity certainly included some significant areas of wetlands, along the Mediterranean coast and in the Jordan valley, which harboured amphibious animals as large as the hippopotamus and permitted the cultivation of aquatic plants like papyrus. In more recent times, until they were drained, these wetlands were intensely malarious.
    Similarly in antiquity Josephus described as