OPTIMISATION OF PARASITOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION METHOD OF ARCHEOLOGICAL MATERIALS

Abstract

Recently, interest in paleoparasitology and archaeoparasitology has significantly increased all over the world, which served as the basis for the development of an international protocol for special parasitological studies, which needs to be tested and adapted for each specific case. In this work, we conducted a paleoparasitological study of 29 samples obtained during the excavations of the city of Mangazeya (north of Western Siberia) using the modified method of Beltrame M.O. et al. In the course of the analysis, 1977 slides with sediment were examined and more than 87 thousand helminth eggs were found. It was established that the prevalence of the infection was 89.66%, the average intensity of the infection was 3349.38, and the abundance index was 103.55. The presence of 9 species of parasites was determined, with eggs of some of them found in a very few number, including 4 species that were not found earlier on this site. Statistical processing demonstrated the relationship between the number of slides examined and the number of helminth eggs found, while the Spearman correlation coefficient was 0.658 with a significance value of <0.05. Comparison of the parasitological research methods of archaeological finds showed that the use of the method of analysis we chose demonstrates more reliable results and allows us to detect parasite eggs in the sample in an insignificant amount.