One of the ancient DNA finds that continues to intrigue me is the discovery of Borrelia burgdorferi, the agent of Lyme disease, in Ötzi the 5300-year-old ice mummy from the Italian Alps. As far as I know, this is the only finding of B. burgdorferi in ancient remains of any date. I discussed the initial report of these findings back in the summer of 2012.
The more we learn about Ötzi’s environment and lifestyle, the less mysterious it seems. There are no signs of human habitation or land management in these high Alpine regions. Indicators of deforestation, farming, and pasture maintenance are lacking from lake sediment and pollen studies. Festi, Putzer and Oeggl (2013) found the first signs of human land management in the Ötztal Alps to began about 1000 years after Ötzi’s time. During the Copper Age, subsistence occupation of the valley floor was sufficient for the population of Ötzi’s time. They did minimal farming, and breeding of caprines (sheep, goats, and ibex). Festi, Putzer and Oeggl (2013) note that Ötzi’s mummy is the only piece of evidence for humans that high in the Otztal Alps before the Bronze Age.
Before Ötzi’s time, landscape management in the Mesolithic was to support red deer herds that were “in a state of semi-domestication by means of active hunting” (Rollo et al, 2002). (Native Americans managed deer populations in similar ways by promoting a landscape where deer thrive near their hunting grounds.) The importance of deer to Ötzi is underscored by everything about him from the red deer meat in his stomach to the roe deerskin that made up his quiver and antler in some of his tools (Rollo et al, 2012). Two different species of deer have been confirmed by genetic analysis. Most of his clothing was made of sheep and goat skins (O’Sullivan et al, 2016).
The agent of Lyme disease, B. burgdorferi, is transmitted primarily by the tick Ixodes ricinus, common on deer, sheep, cattle, humans and dogs as adults and feed on rodents and small mammals as nymphs. Ticks often thrive at the forest edge where there are grasses for them to climb up to catch passing deer. It seems likely that they would also thrive in along upland forest edges as well. Ixodes ricinus is found throughout the Alps. It is feasible that Lyme disease was a greater problem for humans when we relied on deer as a staple food.
Ötzi’s B. burgdorferi has yet to be confirmed by a second group. Interestingly, a recent study of B. burgdorferi’s phylogeny suggests that it originated in Europe and later spread to ‘post-Columbian’ North America (Margos et al, 2008). Although Lyme disease was only recognized in the 20th century, it is apparently an ancient disease caused by multiple Borrelia species. And Ötzi’s sequence has not been added to any phylogeny I’ve found, odd. Overlooked, or a problematic sequence?
References
Festi, D., Putzer, A., & Oeggl, K. (2013). Mid and late Holocene land-use changes in the Otztal Alps, territory of the Neolithic Iceman “Otzi”. Quaternary International, 353, 1–18. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2013.07.052
Margos, G., Gatewood, A. G., Aanensen, D. M., Hanincová, K., Terekhova, D., Vollmer, S. A., et al. (2008). MLST of housekeeping genes captures geographic population structure and suggests a European origin of Borrelia burgdorferi. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(25), 8730–8735. http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0800323105
O’Sullivan, N. J., Teasdale, M. D., Mattiangeli, V., Maixner, F., Pinhasi, R., Bradley, D. G., & Zink, A. (2016). A whole mitochondria analysis of the Tyrolean Iceman’s leather provides insights into the animal sources of Copper Age clothing. Scientific Reports, 6, 1–9. http://doi.org/10.1038/srep31279
Rollo, F., Ubaldi, M., Ermini, L., & Marota, I. (2002). Otzi’s last meals: DNA analysis of the intestinal content of the Neolithic glacier mummy from the Alps. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 99(20), 12594–12599. http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.192184599
Contagions 