DNA Analysis Shows Tuberculosis in Britain Predated Roman Armies

Roman armies have been suspected of introducing TB to Britain, but the disease was present in the nation hundreds of years before those armies arrived, the English Heritage association reported Thursday. DNA analysis of part of a skeleton found in the southern English county of Dorset has revealed that a man who died there between 400 and 230 BC had the disease. "This is the earliest case of TB yet found in Britain, and it indicates that even in a remote rural settlement, the disease was here centuries before the Roman conquest," said association archeologist Simon Mays. Previously, the earliest British case of TB was thought to have been in 55 BC -- around the time of Julius Caesar's first military campaign in the country. The world's earliest recorded case of TB has been observed in a skeleton more than 6,000 years old, which was found in Italy.

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