DNA analysis of mummies from Chile has provided new evidence that smallpox arrived in the Americas after European colonization. Researchers led by geneticist Shigeki Nakagome of Trinity College Dublin analyzed bone samples from an archaeological site at Camarones in northern Chile and found evidence of two smallpox infections dating to between 1492 and 1631.
The study, published in the journal Science, centers on the DNA recovered from 13 bone samples previously collected from the Camarones site. The researchers uncovered evidence of smallpox infections in one man and one woman who were believed to have died during this time period. This discovery marks the first evidence of smallpox in South America.
Historians have long known that smallpox reached the Americas following European contact, but the exact route it took remains a mystery. The virus was once one of the world's deadliest diseases, killing roughly one-third of those infected and leaving survivors often disfigured and scarred.
The discovery raises questions about how the virus traveled so far south, with researchers considering possible routes through Native trade networks or Africa amid the expansion of the slave trade. Patricia Foster, a biologist at Indiana University who was not involved in the research, said the findings provide genetic proof of something historians have long understood: that smallpox came to the Americas from European colonization.
The study is part of a growing body of research using DNA analysis to shed new light on diseases and deaths that have puzzled researchers for centuries.
NTC Report coverage is based on reporting from the original publisher.
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