An ancient case of a mother's vitamin deficiency contributing to her infant's death ''pulls at the heart strings'', Associate Prof Sian Halcrow says.
Prof Halcrow, of the University of Otago anatomy department, is the lead investigator in a research project, backed by a $700,000 Marsden Fund grant. The Otago University-led research, in part, studies the transition to the later development of agriculture in prehistory, between 3200 and 3600 years ago, in the Atacama Desert, in Northern Chile.
Prof Halcrow said this was one of the world's harshest environments: the ''most arid'' hot desert in the world, where less than 2mm of rain fell each year, and fresh water came only from ''snow-fed rivers''.
An ancient woman, found with her ''probably unborn child'', also showed evidence of scurvy.
Study first author Anne Marie Snoddy, who is studying for an Otago PhD, said the paper provided ''the first direct evidence of potential maternal-foetal transference of a nutritional deficiency in an archaeological sample''.
Ms Snoddy discovered the ancient woman and baby during an expedition to Chile in 2015, and as a mother, she empathised with their plight.
''It pulls at the heart strings,'' Prof Halcrow said.
A study published recently in the International Journal of Paleopathology, focused on an ''Early Formative Period'' site just transitioning to agriculture (3600-3200 years ago), and showed all the infants had evidence of scurvy, a nutritional vitamin C deficiency.
The internationally collaborative research was ''contributing to understanding the crucial, sensitive relationship between mothers and infants'' in the past, Prof Halcrow said.
This was the first known archaeological example of this type of transference of vitamin deficiency from mother to infant.
The mother-infant pair and other newborn babies at the Chilean site showed evidence for vitamin C deficiency, and could contribute to our ''clinical understanding'' of the maternal transference of the deficiency, Prof Halcrow said.
