MANY NTDs MAY HAVE ORIGINATED IN THE PALEOLITHICS

Sunday, 15th of April 2012

MANY NTDs MAY HAVE ORIGINATED IN THE PALEOLITHIC

Abstract below; full text is at http://www.plosntds.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pntd.0001393

Abstract

The standard view of modern human infectious diseases is that many of them arose during the Neolithic when animals were first domesticated, or afterwards. Here we review recent genetic and molecular clock estimates that point to a much older Paleolithic origin (2.5 million years ago to 10,000 years ago) of some of these diseases. During part of this ancient period our early human ancestors were still isolated in Africa. We also discuss the need for investigations of the origin of these diseases in African primates and other animals that have been the original source of many neglected tropical diseases.

Citation: Trueba G, Dunthorn M (2012) Many Neglected Tropical Diseases May Have Originated in the Paleolithic or Before: New Insights from Genetics. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 6(3): e1393. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0001393

Copyright: © 2012 Trueba, Dunthorn. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* E-mail: gtrueba@usfq.edu.ec