Old droppings reveal parasites in 8,000-year-old Çatalhöyük village

New research published today in the journal antiquity reveals that ancient faeces from the prehistoric village of Çatalhöyük provided the earliest archaeological evidence of infection with an intestinal parasite on the Near East Continent.

People first abandoned hunting and gathering and turned to agriculture in the Near East about 10,000 years ago. The Çatalhöyük settlement is famous for being an incredibly well-preserved primitive village founded around 7 100 BC. The population of Çatalhöyük consisted of primitive farmers who cultivated crops such as wheat and barley and raised sheep and goats.

"It was suggested that this lifestyle change had resulted in a similar change in the types of diseases that affected them.As the village is one of the largest and most populous of its time, this study led to Çatalhöyük helps us understand this process better, says Dr. Piers Mitchell of the Archeology Department of Cambridge.

The toilets were invented for the first time in the 4th millennium BC in Mesopotamia, 3,000 years later than when Çatalhöyük flourished. It is believed that the inhabitants of Çatalhöyük either went to the dump to open their bowels, or carried their excrement from their homes to the discard pile in a container or basket for disposal.

"We expected that this put the population at risk of contracting diseases through contact with human feces and explained why they were at risk of contracting whipworm," said the first author of the study. , Marissa Ledger.

"The writing was invented only 3000 years after the time of Çatalhöyük, people were not able to tell what had happened to them in their lives.This research allows us to for the first time to imagine the symptoms experienced by some prehistoric people living in Çatalhöyük who have been infected by this parasite ".

To search for intestinal parasite eggs, Mitchell, Ledger and Evilena Anastasiou, researchers at Cambridge, used microscopy to study human stool residues (coprolites) held in a landfill, as well as soil formed from decomposed stool recovered from the pelvic area of ​​burials. The samples date from 7 100-6150 BC.

Helen Mackay, Lisa Marie Shillito and Ian Bull analyzed the sterols and bile acids of the Bristol University Mass Spectrometry Facility to determine whether the coprolites extracted from the excavation came from human or animal faeces. This analysis demonstrated that the coprolites were of human origin.

Further microscopic analysis showed that whipworm eggs were present in two of the coprolites, demonstrating that people from the prehistoric village were infected with this intestinal parasite.

"It was a special moment to identify parasite eggs over 8,000 years old," said study co-author Evilena Anastasiou.

The whipworms measure 3 to 5 cm long and live on the lining of the intestine of the large intestine. Adult worms can live 5 years. The male and female worms mate and their eggs are mixed with faeces. The whipworm is transmitted through the contamination of food or drinks from human faeces containing worm eggs. Serious Whiplin infection can lead to anemia, diarrhea, stunting and loss of intelligence in children.

"We now need to find ancient feces from prehistoric hunter gatherings in the Middle East to help us understand how this lifestyle change has affected their diseases." Mitchell added.