Head Lice And Archaeogenetics

Archaeogenetics is the field of looking at humanity's past and its genetics to find out about how the human species has interacted with the biosphere over the last million years. This gives us a great insight into the possible affects on the human races future where disease is concerned. The present situation, with disease jumping species between birds and humans for example, shows how important this field may be.

Head lice are playing an important role in the field of archaeogenetics because their evolution reveals much about the history of man. Because head lice are specific to humans only, they are one of only a few diseases that have ancestral history with humans, and our previous ancestors like the hominids.

It is believed that head lice and other lice variations have lived for over a million years and infested humans since the dawn of time when Homo erectus, one of our first ancestors walked the earth.

How do we know this? Well, head lice are not only specific to human head hair; they also die within 48 hours if they are without a human host, as the human head is the only terrain that gives the right conditions for head lice to flourish.

What has the history of lice told us so far?

The evolution of head lice has shown that one hundred thousand years ago they hit a population bottleneck. A population bottleneck is an event in the history of a species where the population is reduced by up to fifty percent or more. This population bottleneck 100,000 years ago also coincides with the merging of the hominid lineage of head lice that lived more than a million years ago, infecting Homo erectus.

This event also coincides with the single origin theory that the human race of today (Homo Sapiens) originated from East Africa about 100,000 years ago when all other human species had become extinct.

What may have happened with the head lice population bottleneck from days gone by is that the Homo sapiens of East Africa began moving throughout the world. As the Homo sapiens moved around the world, they began colonizing as they went causing small pockets of humans everywhere, rather than one big concentration in one place.

The affect the human populations movements had on the head lice population was catastrophic as the concentration of humans in one area decreased dramatically it meant the head lice population could not sustain its own growth causing numbers to fall.

Head lice are important

As you have read, the history of the head lice is pivotal in the history of mankind. Many professionals who have studied archaeogenetics have agreed the historical value of the head lice is greater than we ever imagined, and that a lot of our own history is still to be found by following the evolution of head lice.

While having an infestation of head lice can be uncomfortable and embarrassing, it is important to remember that these insects are showing us the origins of human evolution.