Disease Introduction by Aboriginal Humans in North America and the Pleistocene Extinction

Were human-introduced diseases the responsible for Pleistocene-Holocene megafaunal extinctions? First evidence from South America

“…After a detailed analysis, Nickell and Moran (2017) find two diseases that fit criteria for being a possible proximate or contributing cause for the Pleistocene-Holocene extinction of New World megafauna: anthrax and tuberculosis. These diseases appear to have been first introduced at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch (10–20,000 years BP), could have been easily spread by migrating humans, and can infect and cause substantial mortality in relatives of extinct megafauna.…”

“…Cione et al (2003, 2009) correctly stated that strong temperature fluctuation occurred at least 20 times since the middle-Pleistocene, and because no massive extinction occurred in any of those cyclic changes, it is inferred that megamammals were clearly adapted to such changes, and thus, climate by itself should not be the sole responsible of their extinction. In the same line, in spite that some early humans in America were, at least occasionally, big-game hunters (Waguespack and Surovell, 2003), man populations by Pleistocene-Holocene boundary were small along the New World (Alroy, 2001), and thus, would have had difficulty exterminating species with continental-wide distributions (Nickell and Moran, 2017). These two hypotheses have been exhaustively debated in the literature (e.g.…”

Finding Archaeological Relevance during a Pandemic and What Comes After

“…Host-specific parasites such as hookworm, pinworm, and whipworm would also have traveled with humans to the Americas, although the timing of their arrival and routes of travel have yet to be clarified (Araújo et al 2013). Early migrants may also have introduced anthrax to the Americas, transporting the bacteria on animal hides as early as 13,000 BP and possibly contributing to Pleistocene extinctions—although, again, more work is needed to evaluate prehistoric human impacts on pathogen–host ecology in North America (Nickell and Moran 2017).…”

“…Protozoan diseases such as giardiasis ( Giardia sp. ; Nickell and Moran 2017), leishmaniasis ( Leishmania sp. ; Costa et al 2009), toxoplasmosis ( Toxoplasma gondii ; Lehmann et al 2006), and Chagas disease ( Tripanosoma cruzi ; Aufderheide et al 2004) were also present in some environments.…”

“…Diseases transmitted directly or indirectly from human to human (e.g., hepatitis B, see Roman et al 2014; Herpes simplex , see Wertheim et al 2014) were also present in precontact North American populations (Merbs 1992; Nickell and Moran 2017), although their presence has often been difficult to establish archaeologically because few affect the bones. Treponematosis ( Treponema pallidum subsp.?)…”