Hydatid disease (Echinococcosis granulosis) diagnosis from skeletal osteolytic lesions in an early seventh-millennium BP forager community from preagricultural northern Vietnam.

While hydatid disease has previously been found in pre-agricultural communities, the high prevalence at Con Co Ngua is non-incidental. We propose that the presence of wild canids and management of wild buffalo and deer increased the risk of disease transmission. These findings further reveal subsistence complexity among hunter-gatherers living millennia prior to the adoption of farming in Southeast Asia.