Fleas from pharaonic Amarna.

Fleas from pharaonic Amarna. The preservation of ectoparasites in archaeological sites isnormally problematic, but the dry environment of the Egyptian desertkeeps even the very fragile remains of fleas intact. Fleas, Siphonaptera, can be divided in three large groups: thesedentary fleas that live in the nest of their hosts, the mobile fleasthat still require a nest but can also live on the host, and thestick-tight fleas that attach themselves on the host. The human flea,Pulex irritans L. is one of the mobile fleas, nowadays cosmopolitan, andhas been found on a wide range of hosts (Hopla 1980; Cooper 2001). Manevolved in the Old World and although the human flea is closelyassociated with him, it probably has a New World origin (Hopla 1980:201; Traub 1985: 408; Buckland & Sadler 1989), as all its congenersare found in the Americas. Donkin (1985) thought that the original hostfor P. irritans was the peccary peccary(pĕk`ərē), small wild pig, genus Tayassu, the only pig native to the Americas. Although similar in appearance to Old World pigs, peccaries are classified in a family of their own because of anatomical differences. (family Tayassuidae). However peccariesdo not have relatively permanent nest sites, and Buckland & Sadler(1989), after examining the profiles of different animal hosts, havesuggested Cavia porcellus L., the guinea pig (cavy cavy(kā`vē), name for 14 species of South American rodents of the family Caviidae, including the domestic guinea pig. The wild cavies are usually small, rounded, and tailless, with fur of a uniform shade of brown. ) as the primary hostfor the flea. C. porcellus was domesticated during the pre-Colombianperiod for its meat, but its contribution to the South Americanagricultural economy has always been on a local scale. Recentarchaeological finds of Pulex sp. on a pre-Columbian C. porcellus fromPeru (Dittmar 2000) support the above hypothesis. In Europe specimens of P. irritans have been recovered from VikingDublin (Coope 1981; Rothschild 1973) and Anglo-Scandinavian York(Kenward & Hall 1995), as well as from Roman Carlisle (Goodwin etal. 1991) and the Roman period crannog crannog:see lake dwelling. crannogIn Scotland and Ireland, an artificially constructed site for a house or settlement, usually on an islet or in the shallows of a lake. at Buiston Ayrshire, Scotland(Kenward et al. 2000). Large numbers of human fleas have also been foundon the Greenlandic Norse farms (Buckland & Sadler 1989; Buckland etal. 1998; Panagiotakopulu 2001). The Workmen's Village at Amarna, 270 km south of Cairo, had avery short occupation period, 20-25 years, from the fourth regnal yearof Akhenaten through the reigns of Smenkhare and Tutankhamun (c.1350-1323 BC). It housed tomb workers and probably later guards. BarryKemp, the director of the excavations, facilitated the environmentalwork on site, and provided samples for archaeoentomological research.The insect study from the site, still in progress, has produced a widerange of specimens, among which are 35 human fleas. The Amarna findsprovide clear evidence for the early dispersal of human fleas andsupport the biogeographic model suggested by Buckland & Sadler(1989). According to their hypothesis, P. irritans got established inSouth America as an ectoparasite ec��to��par��a��siten.A parasite that lives on the surface or exterior of the host organism, such as an ectophyte or an ectozoon.ec on humans around the period that theguinea pig was domesticated. From there it travelled on Man through theAmericas, crossed the Bering Straits, and travelled through Asia toAfrica and Europe. By small steps, perhaps largely through gift exchangeof fur between small groups, the human flea has obtained a cosmopolitandistribution. There may be earlier literary evidence for fleas in Egypt. TheEbers papyrus, bought by Berhard Ebers in 1875 and now in the Universitylibrary of Leipzig, is a compilation of ancient Egyptian medical texts.Although dated to c.1550 BC, some of the treatments are believed to goback to the I Dynasty (3000 BC). One of the recipes (XCVII) recommendssprinkling with natron na��tron?n.A mineral of hydrous sodium carbonate, Na2CO3��10H2O, often found crystallized with other salts.[French, from Spanish natr��n, from Arabic water in order to expel the fleas in a house.However, the transliteration of the hieroglyphic for flea is notcertain, and this could equally imply occurrence of bedbugs, Cimexlectularius, as opposed to fleas (Panagiotakopulu & Buckland 1999).The Amarna evidence provides the earliest examples of the so-calledhuman flea. References BUCKLAND, P.C., P.I. BUCKLAND & P. SKIDMORE. 1998. Insectremains from GUS: an interim report, in J. Arneborg & H. C. Gullov(ed.) Man, culture and environment in ancient Greenland: 74-9.Copenhagen: Danish National Museum & Danish Polar Centre. BUCKLAND, P.C. & J. SADLER. 1989. A biogeography BiogeographyA synthetic discipline that describes the distributions of living and fossil species of plants and animals across the Earth's surface as consequences of ecological and evolutionary processes. of the humanflea, Pulex irritans L. (Siphonaptera: Pulicidae), Journal ofBiogeography The Journal of Biogeography (Blackwell Publishing), first published in 1974, is the leading international scientific journal in the subject of biogeography. Papers dealing with all aspects of spatial, ecological and historical biogeography are considered for publication. 16: 115-20. COOPE, G.R. 1981. Report on the coleoptera from an eleventh-centuryhouse at Christ Church Place, Dublin, in H. Bekker-Nielsen, P. Foote& O. Olsen (ed.), Proceedings of the Eighth Viking Congress (1977):51-6. Odense: Odense University Press. COOPER, J.E. 2001. Fleas, hosts and locations, The VeterinaryRecord (3 February 2001): 156. DITTMAR, K. 2000. Studies on parts of the 28Sr DNA of 1000 year oldfleas (Pulex sp.) recovered from animal mummies from the preincaicChiribiya Culture, Southern Peru. Abstract 50. Abstracts of 5thInternational Ancient DNA Conference, Manchester 2000. DONKIN, R.A. 1985. The peccary: with observations on theintroduction of pigs to the New World, Transactions of the AmericanPhilosophical Society 75, pt. 5. GOODWIN, K., J.P. HUNTLEY, E.P. ALLISON, H.K. KENWARD & L.M.MORGAN. 1991. The plant and insect remains from periods 2 and 2-3; Theplant and insect remains from Building 1627; Building 1633; The plantand insect remains from the external areas; The plant and insect remainsfrom period 3B, in M.R. McCarthy, The structural sequence andenvironmental remains from Castle Street, Carlisle: 9-20. Carlisle:Cumberland & Westmoreland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society.Research series 5. HOPLA, C.E. 1980. A study of the host associations and zoogeography zoogeographydefining the location and numbers of animal populations, and their variability with time. of Pulex, in R. Traub & H. Starcke (ed.), Fleas: 185-207. Rotterdam:Balkema. KENWARD, H.K. & A.R. HALL. 1995. Biological evidence from 16-22Coppergate. York: Council for British Archaeology/York ArchaeologicalTrust. Archaeology of York 14/7. KENWARD, H.K., M. HILL, D. JAQUES, A. KROUPA & F. LARGE. 2000.Evidence from beetles and other insects; evidence for living conditionson the crannog, in A. Crone, The history of a Scottish lowland crannog:excavations at Buiston, Ayrshire, 1989-90: 230-47. Edinburgh: ScottishTrust for Archaeological Research. PANAGIOTAKOPULU, E. 2001. Fossil records of ectoparasites, Antenna25: 41-2. PANAGIOTAKOPULU, E. & P.C. BUCKLAND. 1999. The bed bug, Cimexlectularius L. from Pharaonic Egypt, Antiquity 73: 908-11. ROTHSCHILD, M. 1973. Report on a female Pulex irritans in a tenthcentury Viking pit, Proceedings of the Royal Entomological Society ofLondon The Royal Entomological Society of London (formerly, the Entomological Society of London) is devoted to insect study. It has a major national and international role in disseminating information about insects and improving communication between entomologists. 38: 29. TRAUB, R. 1985. Coevolution co��ev��o��lu��tion?n.The evolution of two or more interdependent species, each adapting to changes in the other. It occurs, for example, between predators and prey and between insects and the flowers that they pollinate. of fleas and mammals, in K.C. Klm(ed.), Coevolution of parasitic arthropods and mammals: 295-440. NewYork (NY): Wiley & Sons. E. PANAGIOTAKOPULU, Panagiotakopulu, Department of Archaeology& Prehistory, University of Sheffield The University of Sheffield is a research university, located in Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. ReputationSheffield was the Sunday Times University of the Year in 2001 and has consistently appeared as their top 20 institutions. , Northgate House, West Street,Sheffield sl 4ET, England.