A team of Indian and US scientists has reported in the interactive on-line peer reviewed journal PLoS ONE finding signs of leprosy in a skeleton buried about 4000 years ago in northwest India.

The skeleton was found during excavations at Balathal in Rajasthan, where a settlement of people lived in stone or mud-brick huts and grew barley. The bones were buried in  cow dung ash in a thick-walled enclosure on the edge of the settlement. Radiocarbon dating indicated the skeleton was a male, who was in his late thirties when he was buried between 2500 and 2000 BC. Although the skeleton was fragmentary the researchers found erosion and pitting of the bone around the nose and cheeks as well as in the ribs, vertebrae and limbs. The loss of bone around the nose and destruction of the nasal spine clearly indicated to the researchers that the man had had leprosy.

The authors indicate that this finding sheds new light on the emergence of leprosy around the world and strongly indicates that leprosy existed in South Asia at least 4000 years ago, at a time of urbanisation, increasing population density and regular trade networks that stretched to Mesopotamia and beyond.

Dr Robbins from the Department of Anthropology of the Appalachian State University of Boone, North Carolina, is currently attempting to recover ancient DNA from the skeleton, which may also help reveal more about the geographic origins of leprosy.

PLoS ONE: Ancient Skeletal Evidence for Leprosy in India (2000 B.C.):
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0005669 

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