Back
Fasciola hepatica eggs in paleofaeces of the Persian onager Equus hemionus onager, a donkey from Chehrabad archaeological site, dating back to the Sassanid Empire (224-651 AD), in ancient Iran.
Journal article

Fasciola hepatica eggs in paleofaeces of the Persian onager Equus hemionus onager, a donkey from Chehrabad archaeological site, dating back to the Sassanid Empire (224-651 AD), in ancient Iran.

  • Askari Z Department of Medical Parasitology and Mycology, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
  • Mas-Coma S Departamento de Parasitología, Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad de Valencia, Av. Vicente Andrés Estellés s/n, 46100 Burjassot, Valencia, Spain. Electronic address: S.Mas.Coma@uv.es.
  • Bouwman AS Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstraße 190, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland.
  • Boenke N Institut für Archäologische Wissenschaften, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Am Bergbaumuseum 31, D-44791 Bochum, Germany.
  • Stöllner T Department for Mining Archaeology, Deutsches Bergbau Museum Bochum, Herner Straße 45, D-44787 Bochum, Germany.
  • Aali A Archaeological Museum of Zanjan, Emaarate Zolfaghari, Taleghani Street, Zanjan, Iran.
  • Rezaiian M Department of Medical Parasitology and Mycology, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Center for Research of Endemic Parasites of Iran (CREPI), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
  • Mowlavi G Department of Medical Parasitology and Mycology, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Center for Research of Endemic Parasites of Iran (CREPI), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Electronic address: molavig@yahoo.com.
Show more…
  • 2018-04-27
Published in:
  • Infection, genetics and evolution : journal of molecular epidemiology and evolutionary genetics in infectious diseases. - 2018
Chehrabad archaeological site
Equus hemionus onager
Euroasiatic wild asses
Fasciola hepatica
Fertile Crescent
Persian onager
Sassanid empire
ancient Iran
donkeys
eggs
paleofaeces
Animals
Equidae
Fasciola hepatica
Fascioliasis
History, Ancient
History, Medieval
Iran
English Fascioliasis is a highly pathogenic zoonotic disease caused by the liver trematodes Fasciola hepatica and F. gigantica. Within the multidisciplinary initiative against this disease, there is the aim of understanding how this disease reached a worldwide distribution, with important veterinary and medical repercussions, by elucidating the spreading steps followed by the two fasciolids from their paleobiogeograhical origins. Fasciola eggs were detected in paleofaeces of a donkey, probably the present-day endangered Persian onager Equus hemionus onager, found in the Chehrabad salt mine archaeological site, Zanjan province, northwestern Iran. The biological remains dated back to the Sassanid period, 224-651 AD. Egg characteristics allowed for their specific ascription to F. hepatica. The interest of this finding relies on the fact of being the first archaeological finding of Fasciola in Asia and the Near East. Moreover, it allows to reach many conclusions about historical, epidemiological and spreading aspects of the disease. The finding in Chehrabad indicates that, at that time, this fasciolid had already spread through the Zagros mountains eastward from the Fertile Crescent. In that region and in ancient Egypt, livestock domestication played a crucial role in facilitating the disease spread during the postdomestication period. Donkeys appear at present to be usually infected by fasciolids in countries of the Fertile Crescent - Ancient Egypt region or neighbouring that region, with prevalences from low to very high. The high pathogenicity and mortality induced by Fasciola in these equines should be considered as an additional potential factor among the causes of the extinctions of E. h. hemippus in Syria, E. h. hydruntinus in the Anatolia-Balkans area, E. h. onager in the Caucasus and maybe also its decline in Iran. Indeed, Eurasiatic wild asses were present in the region and neighbourhood of the Fertile Crescent when the domestication of the livestock reservoirs of Fasciola began.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/3636
Statistics
Document views: 39 File downloads: