Ancient Oral Metagenomes from La Real: Insights into Health and Infectious Disease Across the Middle Horizon Period

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

La Real is a site located in the Majes Valley of southern Peru associated with two chronologically distinct burial contexts dated to the early and late Middle Horizon periods. Previous analysis of these funerary assemblages has shown similarities in the demographic profiles and incidence of trauma between burials from the two periods. Documented increases in lethal violence in later burials and substantial changes in associated mortuary artifacts, however, have been interpreted in the context of increased Wari influence and associated reorganization of status and social structure in this region. Much is still unknown about how these political changes impacted health and infectious disease dynamics in this population. To this end, we present an analysis of ancient oral metagenomes from dental calculus sampled from six individuals from La Real. In conjunction with ongoing bioarchaeological work, assessment of taxonomic diversity and metabolic function of the reconstructed oral microbiomes provides insights into diet, infectious disease burden, and oral health at this site. Additionally, this preliminary analysis identifies putative pathogens identified from these oral microbiomes, including members of the Red Complex of Porphyromonas gingivalis, Treponema denticola, Tannerella forsythia and other periopathogens implicated in periodontal disease.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40252.0