Fig 1.
Map of archeological sites studied.
Map indicates the location of sediment samples studied. The table on the right provides the site name, date of samples, and sample types. Basemap from Natural Earth Basemap (https://www.naturalearthdata.com).
Fig 2.
Summary of parasites recovered from each sample using microscopy, ELISA, and ancient DNA.
Black bars represent egg concentrations identified using microscopy and blue bars represent DNA read count. Samples for which insufficient material was available for ELISA are crossed out and positive ELISA tests are marked with a + . 1 Ledger et al., 2019 [38]; 2 Anastasiou et al., 2014 [34]; 3 Mitchell et al., 2022 [43]; 4 Ledger et al., 2019 [39]; 5 Deforce et al., 2021 [42]; 6 Ledger et al., 2021 [33]; 7 Ledger et al., 2020 [41]; 8 Williams et al., 2017 [36]; 9 Ledger et al., 2018 [37]; 10 Knorr et al., 2019 [40]; 11 Yeh et al., 2015 [35].
Fig 3.
Variation in morphological appearance of Ascaris sp. eggs identified in samples with confirmed presence of Ascaris sp. using aDNA methods.
(A) fertilized egg from Arlon with mamillated coat; (B) fertilized egg from Arlon with mamillated coat; (C) fertilized decorticated egg from Mértola (image credit: Delaney Knorr); (D) fertilized decorticated egg from Mértola (image credit: Delaney Knorr); (E) fertilized decorticated egg from Vacone; (F) fertilized decorticated egg from Vacone; (G and H) fertilized decorticated egg from Sardis with surface cracking; (I) fertilized decorticated egg from Sardis. Scale bars indicate 20 µm.
Fig 4.
Heatmap comparing concentration of Ascaris sp. eggs recovered from each sample to percentage of LCA-assigned reads.
Ascaris sp. egg concentration is reported in eggs per gram based on microscopy and LCA-assigned reads include reads that were assigned to the Superfamily Ascaridoidea or lower and read count assigned to Ascaridoidea or lower. Samples are ordered in the table based on egg per gram concentration from highest to lowest concentration with dark red background for the lowest concentrations, yellow/orange mid-range and green the highest concentrations.
Fig 5.
Deamination and fragment length distributions for Ascaris sp. reads.
Data generated using mapDamage showing C to T and G to A deamination patterns (top) and fragment length profile (bottom) for reads assigned to Ascaris sp. in samples with highest read count.
Fig 6.
Temporal trends in parasite diversity before, during, and after the Roman period for the most common helminths recovered from archeological samples.
For each parasite, bars indicate the proportion of studied sites where each parasite was recovered for pre-Roman, Roman, and post-Roman sites with 95% confidence intervals. See S1 Appendix for individual studies used to generate temporal trends.