They traveled among the clothing, in the middle of the straw or cereals. Almost 2,000 years ago, the Romans brought bed bugs to Britain, archaeologists have discovered by analyzing insects found in the remains of Vindolandia fort, one of the castrums that guarded Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland.
The fortification was built to house the Roman cohorts. First they were built using wood and later it was built with stone. The archaeologists were analyzing one of the oldest layers, dating between 100 and 105 AD, when they found two thoraxes of the common stink bug (Cimex lectularius).
It’s not like the researchers realized it right away. It was student Katie Wyse Jackson, from University College Dublin, who noticed the discovery in the laboratory, while she was analyzing material excavated as part of her master’s degree in archaeoentomology, the study of insects at archaeological sites.
“Bugs can provide fascinating information about people’s lives in the past. They give details about hygiene, waste disposal, food sources, storage or business practices throughout history,” says Wyse.
The young researcher arrived in Vindolanda in August 2023 to process several soil samples using a process called paraffin flotation, which consists of collecting lighter materials such as plants, seeds and insects using paraffin and water, which causes them to float to the surface and They are easy to collect.
The material is classified under an optical microscope. “I currently find many cereal pests in Vindolanda samples. Species such as the grain weevil (Sitophilus granarius), which often preys on modern kitchen staples such as flour, or the sawtooth beetle (Oryzaephilus surinamensis) are appearing in large numbers,” says Katie Wyse in a statement. Jackson.
“In the same samples, dung beetles are common, which indicates that hygiene was not ideal within these spaces,” adds the researcher. The conditions of the Vindolanda fort offer ideal conditions for insect analysis.
Common bed bugs, also known as bed bugs, are one of the few that feed on blood and those that have best adapted to the human environment. Even so, they are less dangerous than other insects such as fleas since studies indicate that they do not transfer diseases from one person to another.
The surprising thing about this case is that, according to archaeologists, it is “incredibly rare” to find Cimex lectularius in any ancient context. Experts from University College Dublin explain that there is another Roman site in England where they were previously found (Alcester, in Warwickshire) but that those at Vindolanda have turned out to be the oldest discovered in Britain so far.
One of the hypotheses that specialists are working on is that the Romans brought bed bugs to Britain in their straw mattresses. Nowadays these types of insects are found traveling all over the planet on airplanes, in luggage and on clothing. The use of pesticides in the 20th century slowed its expansion, but in recent years there has been a resurgence.
