Excavation Project Could Offer Insight Into Early Days Of Cholera

WOSU 89.7 NPR News | By Steve Brown

Published March 23, 2015 at 8:25 AM EDT

Undergraduate students examine the skeleton of a young male excavated from the Badia Pozzeveri cemetery.

A team of archaeologists has been digging away in the Tuscany region of Italy for nearly five years. They’ve working in a cemetery that holds the remains of many victims of a massive cholera outbreak in the 1850s.

And the remains are especially well-preserved, which could offer a glimpse into the evolution of the deadly bacteria.

WOSU’s Steve Brown spoke with Ohio State archaeology professor Clark Larsen, who’s leading the excavation project.

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Steve Brown

Steve Brown grew up in nearby Richwood, Ohio and now lives there with his wife and sons. He started his journalism career as a weekend board operator at WOSU while majoring in journalism at Ohio State, where he also wrote for the student newspaper The Lantern and co-founded the organization Students for Public Broadcasting.

See stories by Steve Brown