A Bioarchaeological Investigation of Mobility and Infectious Disease

结核病是仅次于COVID-19的全球单一病原体致死原因。它的历史反映了非凡的弹性，在其全球传播中涉及到数量惊人的非人类宿主。该项目使用分子和生物地球化学方法，扩大了对结核病的历史和传播与来自不同景观的古代社区的人类流动关系的了解。随着时间的推移，研究人类过去与流行病的经验，鼓励人们关注导致疾病传播的因素，以及从尽可能广泛的角度看待疾病的重要性——包括环境、所有微生物和潜在宿主。这项研究通过活跃的网站、演示文稿、公开的YouTube英语和西班牙语视频以及现场演示文稿向公众发布。该项目促进国际研究合作，为本科生、研究生和专业人士提供分子技术、生物地球化学分析和数据分析方面的研究经验，帮助他们在就业市场上具有竞争力。这项研究探讨了一种结核病的传播形式，这种结核病在欧洲接触之前很久就严重影响了整个美洲的社区。在这样做的过程中，它考虑了交叉的身份和流动模式，以及人类与其他物种（鳍足动物，细菌）在对比环境中的相互作用。该数据库反映了对一个拥有大量古代结核病证据的地区的全面调查。通过将分子和骨骼证据与古移动的生物地球化学指标相结合，本研究可以描述结核病从沿海的鳍状源传入内陆社区并传播到显然成为人类疾病的内陆社区的复杂周期。这项研究考虑了结核病在社区传播的复杂途径。假设专门针对正在进行的海洋哺乳动物和人类作为新的主要宿主和疾病传播者的引入的预期结果。这一项目的一个重要部分是确定存在结核分枝杆菌复杂疾病的个人和社区的流动性和相互作用模式。这些证据对于建立疾病跨时间和空间传播的细致模型至关重要。生成的数据和结果将以同行评审的文章和公众可访问的格式发布。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Tuberculosis is second only to COVID-19 as a worldwide cause of death by a single pathogen. Its history reflects extraordinary resiliency, which involves a remarkable number of nonhuman hosts in its global spread. This project, which uses molecular and biogeochemical methods, extends knowledge of the history and spread of tuberculosis in relationship to human mobility across ancient communities from a diverse landscape. Studying humankind’s past experience with epidemic disease over time encourages attention to the factors responsible for disease spread and importance of viewing disease in the broadest possible landscape—one that includes the environment and all microbes and potential hosts. This study reaches the public through active websites, presentations, publicly available YouTube videos in both English and Spanish, as well as in-person presentations. The project fosters international research collaborations and provides research experiences for undergraduate and graduate students and professionals in molecular techniques, biogeochemical analyses, and data analysis that will help them be competitive in the job market. This study explores the spread of a form of tuberculosis that severely affected communities throughout the Americas long before European contact. In so doing, it considers intersecting identities and mobility patterns, along with human interactions with other species (pinnipeds, bacteria) in contrastive environmental settings. The database reflects a comprehensive survey of a region with extensive evidence of ancient tuberculosis. By combining molecular and skeletal evidence with biogeochemical indicators of paleomobility, this research can characterize the complex cycles of tuberculosis introduction and spread from a pinniped source along the coast to inland communities where it apparently became a human disease. The study considers the complex routes by which tuberculosis can spread across communities. Hypotheses specifically address expected outcomes of ongoing introductions from sea mammals and humans as novel primary hosts and disease spreaders. An important part of this project is to characterize the mobility and interaction patterns of individuals and communities that present evidence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex diseases. Such evidence is crucial to developing nuanced models for disease spread across time and space. The data generated and results are to be published in peer-reviewed articles and formats accessible to the public.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.