Scientists diagnose first case of tuberculosis in Iron Age man

The earliest known case of tuberculosis in Britain has been identified from the skeleton of an Iron Age man who died about 300BC.

DNA tests confirmed the presence of the TB microbe in the man's spinal bones, which had been deformed because of the respiratory infection, which can give the sufferer a hunched appearance.

Researchers from English Heritage and Imperial College, London, said yesterday that the remains of the man, who was in his thirties when he died, were unearthed from an Iron Age grave at the village of Tarrant Hinton, near Blandford Forum in Dorset.

Until now the earliest case of TB in Britain was in a skeleton dating from the 1st century. The latest find proves the disease had been in Britain long before the Romans crossed from Gaul.

"It indicates that even in a remote rural settlement the disease was here centuries before the Roman Conquest," said Simon Mays, a specialist in human skeletal remains at English Heritage. "It could have come over from the continent, where we know the disease was present in prehistoric times, through well-established trading links with Dorset."

The find has also dispelled the idea that the human form of TB came directly from the type that infects cattle, according to Michael Taylor, a researcher at Imperial College.

"It used to be thought that the species usually responsible for human tuberculosis, which was particularly widespread in medieval times, developed from the bovine form, following the domestication of animals some 10,000 years ago," Dr Taylor said. "DNA research has now shown that it is more probable that both descended from a common ancestor and have adapted to different hosts."

The skeleton was one of two found in oval graves where the bodies were bound for burial in tightly crouched positions. The earliest known case of TB was in Italy and it is dated to about 3,500BC. At its height in medieval Europe, the disease accounted for up to one in five deaths in overcrowded towns.