Tetracycline in the bones of ancient Nubia

The problem

Antibiotics are usually treated as a twentieth-century discovery beginning with penicillin in 1928.

The innovation

Bone from ancient Nubian remains was found to contain tetracycline — the antibiotic itself, deposited in the skeleton in quantities that indicate sustained dietary exposure.

How it worked

Fluorescence and later mass-spectrometry analysis of bone samples detected tetracycline labelling; the most widely accepted explanation is that Streptomyces bacteria contaminated stored grain and were carried through into fermented beer and bread.

Why it mattered

Population-level evidence of an antibiotic in a pre-modern society, with unusually low rates of certain infectious bone disease in the same remains.

The legacy

Whether the effect was deliberately cultivated or an incidental product of storage and fermentation is not settled. The archive records the chemistry as documented and the intent as an open question.

Sources

1. [1]Tetracycline-labeled human bone from ancient Sudanese Nubia (Science, 1980)

   Scholarship

   Bassett, Keith, Armelagos et al. · Scholarship

2. [2]Mass spectroscopic characterization of tetracycline in Nubian bone (American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2010)

   Scholarship

   Nelson, Dinardo, Hochberg, Armelagos · Scholarship