Britons face disastrous bedbug crisis as researchers suggest Romans may have had something to do with it
Roman influence can be seen in everything from public baths to British health plumbing, as researchers studying the Vindolanda military site in Northumberland, south of Hadrian's Wall, have uncovered new evidence that the early They also introduced the British to bed bugs.
Dr Andrew Birley, who leads the Vindolanda archaeological team, said: “It is incredibly rare to find them in any ancient context.”
Katie Wyse Jackson, 24, a student at University College Dublin (UCD), made the discovery while researching excavated material for her master's thesis in archaeoentomology, which is the study of insects at ancient sites.
Focusing on the lower strata of Vindolanda, spanning around AD 100, he discovered two thoraxes that were probably derived from the common bedbug, Cimex lectularius, as it is known in Latin. They pierce human skin with needle-like mouthparts to draw blood, according to the guardian.
“Finding these kinds of things helps humanize people from the past,” Wyse Jackson said.
Noting that Pliny, the Roman philosopher, wrote about the medicinal value of bed bugs in treating certain ailments, such as ear infections, he added: “People then had all kinds of notions about what insects could do.”
Among the team's experts was Dr Stephen Davis, an instructor in environmental archeology at UCD. Those at Vindolanda would be “the oldest found in Britain so far,” he added, adding that there is another Roman site called Alcester in Warwickshire, England, where they were previously identified.
