User:Ktwest/Zoonosis

Farming and Health
The switch from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to an agricultural lifestyle began around the world between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago. One theory that suggests why humans switched to domesticating plants and especially animals is that population pressures, mostly increase in population density, forced humans to switch to agriculture and domestication of animals. During this time many new diseases were able to thrive in larger populations that lived in close proximity to one another. Two of these diseases are: While Anthrax is more difficult to evaluate in the Archaeological record, bovine tuberculosis and other forms of tuberculosis can be seen in the bones of humans dating back to the Neolithic period, when cattle are presumed to have been domesticated. It has been noted that in prehistoric populations there is increasing evidence for later agriculture-based groups than earlier prehistoric hunter-gatherers. There are many theories as to the effect farming had on human health and the general consensus is that humans developed more noticeable health problems and diseases as seen in the archaeological record.
 * Anthrax
 * Bovine Tuberculosis

There are several types of tuberculosis, the kind that effect cold-blooded animals, the kind that effects birds and the bovine type that causes disease in humans. Bovine tuberculosis in humans typically develops in the stomach and intestinal tract. Because bovine tuberculosis is often found in children, some scientists theorize that the disease is spread through the consumption of contaminated milk.

Tuberculosis manifests itself in the archaeological record through DNA extraction from the skeletal remains of people. Tuberculosis rarely manifests itself in the skeleton of individuals and when it does, it is usually only in advanced stages of the disease.

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