TB Found in Peruvian Remains Predates Arrival of Europeans

Discovery of tuberculosis in the 1,000-year-old body of a woman in Peru provides strong evidence that a disease lethal to thousands of Native Americans was in the Western Hemisphere before Columbus and was not a plague brought by Europeans.

A University of Minnesota team said that genetic examination of specimens taken from the lung and lymph nodes of the naturally mummified body shows unmistakable evidence of infection by tuberculosis. A report on the study is to be published today in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences.

The body of the woman, who was about 40 when she died, was one of 650 unearthed by a University of Chicago team in 1990 from a burial area near the town of Ilo in southern Peru.

Dr. Arthur C. Aufderheide, leader of the Minnesota team, said the genetic study of the lung and lymph specimens provides final evidence that tuberculosis was not introduced into the Americas by Europeans.

“It has been thought that tuberculosis became epidemic among Native Americans only after contact with Europeans,” Aufderheide said. “It was thought that the Native Americans had no immunity to TB and that this led to the epidemics.”

Although the finding shows TB existed in pre-Columbian America, Minnesota team member Wilmar L. Salo said, the harsh treatment of the Native Americans contributed to the American epidemics of the disease.

TB is a “herd disease” that can be spread easily among malnourished people crowded together. Some actions by Europeans forced these conditions on the Native Americans, leading to a rapid spread of TB, Aufderheide said. Thousands of Indians died of the disease.