A 5,300-year-old mummy had HPV16.
Scientists analyzing ancient DNA from Ötzi the Iceman — a naturally mummified man discovered in the Alps in 1991 — have found traces of HPV16, a high-risk human papillomavirus linked to several cancers. And Ötzi isn’t the only one. A second prehistoric human from Siberia, who lived 45,000 years ago, also tested positive for the virus. Both are among the oldest human genomes ever sequenced.
HPV is often harmless, but some strains — including HPV16 — are known to cause cervical, anal, and throat cancers. Today, more than 630 million people are infected globally. But until now, scientists had little direct evidence of how far back this virus goes in human history.
The new study, which reanalyzed publicly available genome data, suggests HPV16 has been circulating in anatomically modern humans for tens of thousands of years — long before humans left Africa. That challenges a previous theory that HPV16 was passed to Homo sapiens through interbreeding with Neanderthals in Eurasia.
It also raises deeper questions about our long co-evolution with viruses. If high-risk strains like HPV16 have been with us this long, it suggests they’ve shaped — and been shaped by — human biology over vast timescales.
The research has not yet been peer-reviewed, but experts say the findings are strong. They also underscore how much ancient DNA can still teach us — not just about the past, but about the diseases we continue to fight today.
Read the study:
"Oncogenic HPV types identified in Paleolithic and Chalcolithic human
genome sequencing data from Ust’-Ishim and Ötzi." bioRxiv, 2025.
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