Title: Tuberculosis in prehistory in Eastern Central Europe – Chronological and geographical distribution

Authors: Anett Gémes¹, Antónia Marcsik², Katalin Éva Gyenesei¹, Tamás Szeniczey¹, Krisztián Kiss^1,3, Kitti Köhler⁴, Tamás Hajdu¹

Affiliations: ¹Department of Biological Anthropology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary; ²Department of Biological Anthropology, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary; ³Department of Anthropology, Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest, Hungary; ⁴Institute of Archaeology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Eötvös Loránd Research Network, Budapest, Hungary

Abstract: Infectious diseases are one of the significant selective factors forming the size and distribution of human populations. The clarification of pathogen’s evolution is challenging since, with the exception of some, like tuberculosis (TB), which causes substantial bone alteration as a result of its chronic course, most infectious diseases are difficult to detect. Many scientists have been studying the paleopathology of TB in Hungary during the past few decades. These studies have been focused mainly on the populations lived in Medieval (and Early Modern/Late Modern Period) of the Carpathian Basin. However, we have some sporadic published TB data from the Neolithic which indicate the ancient presence of the TB in the Carpathian Basin.

In our presentation, the aim is to collect the temporal and geographical distribution of tuberculosis across a 6000-year period of prehistory, from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. We present the already published as well as new cases collected from different periods and territory of Eastern Central Europe.

Funding: The physical anthropological work of the team was supported by grant of the Hungarian Research, Development and Innovation Office [project number: FK128013] and the Bolyai Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (TH).