1,600-year-old burial holds remains of man infected with a ‘very rare’ strain of leprosy in Germany

Archaeologists investigating the genomes of a dozen people buried in an abandoned Roman-era settlement in northwestern Germany have discovered a surprising organism lurking in one man’s remains: a rare strain of Mycobacterium leprae, which causes leprosy.

This strain of leprosy has never been seen in this part of Europe before, which hints that the individual had traveled and interacted with people from across the Roman world. The man was buried in a wooden boat surrounded by unusual objects, indicating he was a high-status person, according to a research study.

“The results were particularly striking in the case of one individual,” study co-author Ben Krause-Kyora, an archaeologist at the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology (IKMB) at Kiel University in Germany, said in a Nov. 3 statement. “He could, for example, have been a mercenary in the Roman army who later settled between the Elbe and the Weser [rivers].”

In the study, published online Oct. 15 in the journal iScience, Krause-Kyora and colleagues analyzed the genomes of people buried at the coastal settlement of Fallward. The settlement originated in the first century B.C. but gradually declined and became a cemetery by the fifth century A.D. Among the 200 cremation burials and 60 inhumation burials originally excavated in the 1990s was a distinctive grave made from a wooden boat.

The oak boat was over 13 feet (4 meters) long and sealed with a roof-like structure, the researchers said. It held the skeleton of a man who was about 50 years old when he died some time between A.D. 425 and 450. His grave goods included a small box shaped like a water bird, an ornate chair or throne carved out of alder wood, a bronze basin and a maple stool with a hunting scene and a runic inscription. The maritime artifacts coupled with the man’s well-developed upper arm bones suggest he may have worked as a fisherman or boatman just before he died, the researchers wrote.

“The grave goods placed in the tomb aroused particular scientific interest,” study co-author Hauke Jöns, an archaeologist at the Lower Saxony Institute for Historical Coastal Research, said in the statement. “The man possessed a late Roman military belt, which suggested that the deceased had had connections across great distances.”

A rare form of leprosy

To learn more about this unusual burial and to determine where the man was from, researchers analyzed his DNA.

“Genetic analyses confirm that a man buried at Fallward originated from the Danube region,” study first author Daniel Myburgh, an ancient DNA researcher at IKMB, said in the statement. “He was also infected with a very rare leprosy pathogen.”

The researchers found the DNA of the bacterium M. leprae in one of the man’s teeth and in a foot bone. Because the leprosy DNA was so well preserved, the researchers were able to narrow down the strain that had infected him. This strain of leprosy may have evolved in Egypt around the fourth to second centuries B.C. and had never before been found in Central or Northern Europe, according to the statement.

But the man showed no signs of leprosy lesions in his skeleton, the researchers said. Leprosy first attacks the nerves and skin, but it can eventually eat away at the bones of the skeleton, particularly affecting the nose, jaw, hands and feet.

“Leprosy is a chronic disease,” study co-author Almut Nebel, a biologist at IKMB, said in the statement. “Either he was affected by an asymptomatic form of the disease, or the disease had so far only affected soft tissues. He may have travelled long distances whilst carrying the disease.”

While the researchers don’t know exactly what happened in this man’s life, they suggested he might have been a mercenary who served in the Roman army and later retired to northwest Germany, becoming a high-status member of the community who was honored with an alder-wood “throne” in his burial. But he also may have acquired the Roman belt through trade, inheritance or as a war trophy, the researchers wrote.

Either way, the man’s skeleton and his grave goods suggest that northwest Germany had long-distance connections in Europe even after the fall of the Roman Empire, according to the statement.

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