low graphics version | feedback | help
| Front Page World UK UK Politics Business |
| Sci/Tech |
| Health Education Sport Entertainment Talking Point In Depth AudioVideo |
|
 BBC Science reporter Toby Murcott"Migrants took culture, artefacts and at least one of their viruses"  real 28k |
Viral clue to American settlers
 Many mummies have been discovered in Northern Chile |
Ancient inhabitants of the Andean mountains were infected with the same virus as modern-day Japanese people, suggesting travellers from Asia colonised South America thousands of years ago.
This unusual form of archaeology was carried out by analysing DNA samples taken from the bone marrow of 104 mummies found in Northern Chile.
The mummies are believed to be over 1,000 years old and could be as much as 1,500 years old. Two virus samples, from San Pedro de Atacama, provided useful DNA fragments up to 159 base pairs in length.
Invasion theories
 |
This evidence, published in Nature Medicine, adds weight to existing theories that Mongoloid people invaded South America 20,000 years ago, long before the Spanish invaders brought a variety of different infectious diseases to the region.
Caribbrean population
It also discounts the possibility that the virus was introduced during the European colonisation, 500 years ago.
The virus is associated with adult T-cell leukaemia and other diseases which are today clustered mainly in southwestern Japan and in South America. The new work provides an explanation for the select distribution of the virus but has yet to explain why there is a small population in the Caribbean which also carries it.
The researchers write: "Analysis of these ancient viral sequences could be a useful tool for studying the history of human retroviral infection, as well as human prehistoric migration."
| Search BBC News Online | |
|  Advanced search options | |
| |
 | |
 | |
| |
| BBC RADIO NEWS |
| |
| |
 | BBC ONE TV NEWS |
| |
| |
| WORLD NEWS SUMMARY |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| PROGRAMMES GUIDE |
| |
See also: | |
 | |
 | 08 Apr 99 | Sci/Tech |
| 'Perfect' mummies found high in Andes |
| |
| 16 Apr 99 | Sci/Tech |
| Mountain mummy is baby |
| |
| 26 Aug 99 | Sci/Tech |
| 'First Americans were Australian' |
| |
| 29 Oct 99 | Medical notes |
| Leukaemia: Medical notes |
| |
| 17 Aug 99 | Health |
| Child leukaemia linked to infection |
| |
| |
Internet links: | |
| |
| BBC Horizons: Ice Mummies |
| |
| Retroviruses and cancer |
| |
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites | |
Links to other Sci/Tech stories are at the foot of the page.
E-mail this story to a friend
