Tuberculosis Pre Contacto Interétnico en Tierra Del Fuego. Confirmación por Métodos Moleculares En El Sitio Myren (Chile)

GUICHÓN RA; BUIKSTRA J; MASSONE M; WILBUR A; SUBY JA; CONSTANTINESCU F; PRIETO A

Necochea, Argentina

Congreso; III Paleopathology Association Meeting in South America; 2009

PPA

Considering the available information about the distribution of Tuberculosis (TB) in South America before 1492, a new determination by molecular methods is incorporated to the study of this issue that allows the expansion of paleoepidemiological scenarios in Patagonia. Until now, the presence of TB before the arriving of Europeans to South America has been confirmed using molecular methods by Arriaza et al. (1995) in the north of Chile. In continental Patagonia, the research team of Goñi and coworkers morphologically identified a possible case of TB in the basin of Lake Salitroso-Posada, dated in 1224-1380 years BP calibrated (García Guraieb 2006). In Tierra del Fuego, Constantinescu (1999) identified bone lesions compatible with TB in Myren site (Chile), without offering a radiocarbon date for those remains. Specifically, the present work allows to confirm the diagnosis of TB in the remains of Myren site by molecular methods. Thus, IS6110 sequence was amplified in the Center for Bioarchaeological Research, Arizona State University, Tempe in the United States (J.Buikstra y A. K. Wilbur). Considering the obtained results, a radiocarbon dating was made in the Center for Applied Isotope Studies University of Georgia (USA), which informed an antiquity of 640 ± 20 years BP (14th or 15th Century). Complementarily, contextual information of the site and bioarchaeological information of the remains are offered. These studies were made as part of the Research Grant 01520 (Argentina), oriented to study the changes in health as a consequence of interethnic contact