Bones from 4,000-year-old human skeletons discovered in Chile contain evidence of a rare form of Hansen's disease, also known as leprosy, ancient DNA reveals.
Whereas the more common form of leprosy known today is caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium leprae, these skeletons had evidence of a different, rarer form of the disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium lepromatosis. The findings, published June 30 in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, suggest that the two leprosy-causing bacteria evolved separately, on opposite sides of the globe, for thousands of years.
