Title: Oldest evidence of tuberculosis in the Mediterranean islands: From the mainland to Cyprus

Authors: Françoise Le Mort¹, Oussama Baker^1,2, Bérénice Chamel¹, Hélène Coqueugniot^2,3, Olivier Dutour^2,3

Affiliations: ¹Univ Lyon, Archéorient (UMR 5133 CNRS/Université Lyon 2), Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée – Jean Pouilloux, 7 rue Raulin – 69365 Lyon cedex 07 – France; ²École Pratique des Hautes Études, PSL Université Paris– 4-14 rue Ferrus, 75014 Paris – France; ³Université de Bordeaux, CNRS, UMR 5199 – PACEA, Allée Geoffroy St Hilaire, CS 50023, 33615 Pessac Cedex – France

Abstract: Recent studies combining macroscopical observations and μ-CT analysis have made it possible to reach the diagnosis of tuberculosis for a child from the site of Khirokitia (Cyprus, 7th–early 6th millennium cal. BC), whose age at death is between 5 and 7 years. Many single primary burials were discovered at the site where the dead (MNI=243) are buried in the same way, whatever their age is. Nevertheless, the burial of this child presents a unique feature on the site (a male Ovis trophy marking the limit of the burial pit), probably indicating a specific attention for this young deceased.

This case, the oldest known in the Mediterranean islands, is particularly interesting from a paleoepidemiological point of view. Indeed, considering, on the one hand, the settlement pattern of the island of Cyprus by migrants from the Near East, and on the other hand, the presence of human tuberculosis in the Near East as early as about 10,500 years BP, it is very likely that the migrants brought the disease with them.