Stonehenge builder found to have eaten 'underheated meat with parasites' from poop fossils
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Intestinal parasites in the Neolithic population who built Stonehenge (Durrington Walls, 2500 BCE) | Parasitology | Cambridge Core
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0031182022000476
Prehistoric faeces reveal parasites from feasting at Stonehenge «Archaeology «Cambridge Core Blog
https://www.cambridge.org/core/blog/2022/05/20/prehistoric-faeces-reveal-parasites-from-feasting-at-stonehenge/
Stonehenge builders ate parasite-infested meat during ancient feasts, according to their poop | Live Science
https://www.livescience.com/stonehenge-fossilized-feces-with-parasitic-worms
Prehistoric faeces reveal parasites from feasting near Stonehenge | The Northern Echo
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/20152663.prehistoric-faeces-reveal-parasites-feasting-near-stonehenge/
A research team led by the University of Cambridge, England, discovered a fossilized poop ' coprolite ' in the ruins of the Neolithic settlement of Darlington Walls , 2.8 km from Stonehenji. The Durrington Walls, a settlement ruin around 2500 BC, is believed to have been home to the workers who built Stonehenge.
Analysis of the 19 coprolites discovered by the research team revealed that four from dogs and one from humans contained parasite eggs. The following is the actual analyzed coprolite.
by Evilena Anastasiou
Of these, four of them, including human coprolite, were found to have eggs of an unknown parasite, which is thought to be a type of
Hairhead insects have a special ecology that goes through at least two species of animals. First of all, when a small animal such as a rat accidentally eats an egg, it attaches to the internal organs such as the liver, lungs, and intestines, and when the egg hatches there, it eats the organ and grows and reproduces asexually. After that, when the host is preyed on by a larger animal, the egg passes through the predator's digestive tract and is excreted into the environment. In modern times, two species, Capillaria hepatica and Capillaria philippinensis , are known to parasitize humans, and when these parasites start eating human organs, they become ' capillariasis ' and, in the worst case, die.
Normally, when a human with a hair-headed insect parasitizes, the egg attaches to the liver, but the hair-headed insect egg discovered this time is found in the coprolite. Therefore, it is possible that the person who excreted the stool ate the lungs and liver of the animal parasitized by the hairhead insect without sufficiently cooking it. Dr. Pears Mitchell, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge, said, 'Because cattle can infest cattle and other parasites, cattle may have been the most likely source of parasite eggs. There is. '
This is the egg of the hairhead insect recovered from the coprolite. Researchers speculate that stools were contaminated with parasite eggs as people who came to Durrington Walls to build Stonehenge only during the winter ate undercooked meat as a feast and gave the rest to dogs. doing.
by Evilena Anastasiou
In addition, the eggs of the fish tapeworm found in dog coprolite are generally parasitized in freshwater fish. No evidence of fish being eaten at the Durrington Walls Feast has been found, so the researchers believe it is likely that the dog came to Durrington Walls after eating fish elsewhere.
'This is the first time an intestinal parasite has been found in a Neolithic English site, and it's really amazing that it came from the Stonehenge environment,' Mitchell said. The parasite species are consistent with past evidence that they ate animals in the winter when they built Stonehenge. '
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