Angela
Elite member
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Parallels could be drawn to what might have happened in Europe. I've thought about this in the context that perhaps the only "natives" who survived were the ones who had some degree of admixture with the locals and thus had picked up some measure of immunity to these diseases.
See:
http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/02/08/106740.1
Vagene et al:
[h=1]Salmonella enterica genomes recovered from victims of a major 16th century epidemic in Mexico[/h]"Indigenous populations of the Americas experienced high mortality rates during the early contact period as a result of infectious diseases, many of which were introduced by Europeans. Most of the pathogenic agents that caused these outbreaks remain unknown. Using a metagenomic tool called MALT to search for traces of ancient pathogen DNA, we were able to identify Salmonella enterica in individuals buried in an early contact era epidemic cemetery at Teposcolula-Yucundaa, Oaxaca in southern Mexico. This cemetery is linked to the 1545-1550 CE epidemic locally known as 'cocoliztli', the cause of which has been debated for over a century. Here we present two reconstructed ancient genomes for Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Paratyphi C, a bacterial cause of enteric fever. We propose that S. Paratyphi C contributed to the population decline during the 1545 cocoliztli outbreak in Mexico.
"Well-characterized Old World diseases suchas smallpox, measles, mumps, and influenza have been accepted as the causes of later contact eraoutbreaks; however, the diseases responsible for many early contact period New Worldepidemics remain unknown, and have been the subject of scientific debate for over a century."
"Enteric fever was first determined to be distinct from typhus in the mid-nineteenth century,hence little is known about the prior severity and worldwide incidence of enteric fever (49).Today, outbreaks predominantly occur in developing countries, where mortality rates from S.Typhi are reported to have reached as high as 30-50% (50). S. Typhi and S. Paratyphi arecommonly transmitted through the fecal-oral route via ingestion of contaminated food or water(51). Changes imposed under Spanish rule such as forced relocations under the policy ofcongregación, altered living arrangements, and new subsistence farming practices (27, 28)compounded by drought conditions (52) could have disrupted existing hygiene measures, thusfacilitating S. Paratyphi C transmission."
See:
http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/02/08/106740.1
Vagene et al:
[h=1]Salmonella enterica genomes recovered from victims of a major 16th century epidemic in Mexico[/h]"Indigenous populations of the Americas experienced high mortality rates during the early contact period as a result of infectious diseases, many of which were introduced by Europeans. Most of the pathogenic agents that caused these outbreaks remain unknown. Using a metagenomic tool called MALT to search for traces of ancient pathogen DNA, we were able to identify Salmonella enterica in individuals buried in an early contact era epidemic cemetery at Teposcolula-Yucundaa, Oaxaca in southern Mexico. This cemetery is linked to the 1545-1550 CE epidemic locally known as 'cocoliztli', the cause of which has been debated for over a century. Here we present two reconstructed ancient genomes for Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Paratyphi C, a bacterial cause of enteric fever. We propose that S. Paratyphi C contributed to the population decline during the 1545 cocoliztli outbreak in Mexico.
"Well-characterized Old World diseases suchas smallpox, measles, mumps, and influenza have been accepted as the causes of later contact eraoutbreaks; however, the diseases responsible for many early contact period New Worldepidemics remain unknown, and have been the subject of scientific debate for over a century."
"Enteric fever was first determined to be distinct from typhus in the mid-nineteenth century,hence little is known about the prior severity and worldwide incidence of enteric fever (49).Today, outbreaks predominantly occur in developing countries, where mortality rates from S.Typhi are reported to have reached as high as 30-50% (50). S. Typhi and S. Paratyphi arecommonly transmitted through the fecal-oral route via ingestion of contaminated food or water(51). Changes imposed under Spanish rule such as forced relocations under the policy ofcongregación, altered living arrangements, and new subsistence farming practices (27, 28)compounded by drought conditions (52) could have disrupted existing hygiene measures, thusfacilitating S. Paratyphi C transmission."