Preface for Special Section on Paleoparasitology

In any of specific regions or countries, the patterns of parasite infections are not constant throughout the centuries [1]. Epoch-making events, such as the emergence of agriculture, the beginning of sedentary life, modernization, industrializa-tion, urbanization, and even the development of anti-hel-minths evidently made serious changes in the history of para-sitism. However, our knowledge about how it could evolve for a long time was not sufficient because very few research techniques were available for the study of parasitism of the past. In this regard, the interdisciplinary collaboration of parasi-tology and archeology became important at any moment. The researchers subjected the samples collected from archeological sites to the conventional techniques used in parasitology. After the information obtained from the ancient parasite samples was proven to be authentic, the paleoparasitology, the research of the ancient parasite infection, could be regarded as a helpful tool for comprehending the parasitism of the past. Since then, a number of paleoparasitologists tried to get the patterns of parasite infections in history that could not be elucidated by any conventional methods of history and archeology. By a series of studies for the past several decades, the information about ancient parasitism finally started to be revealed, firmly based upon the actual academic evidences. Such achievements included the studies on the correlation of parasites , human host, and environment, the techniques developed for examining parasite remains preserved in various samples, and the interpretation of parasite findings in archeological remains from a paleogeographic view. In fact, previously published books and special issues successfully provided the most recent techniques and perspectives about paleopara-sitology [2-4]. However, comparing with the other regions of the world, paleoparasitological reports had been very rare in Asia. Considering that multiple ancient civilizations prospered in ancient Asia for a long while, the parasitological samples of the same regions must have been studied much intensively because it could provide invaluable information to the concerned paleoparasitologists. Fortunately enough, however, the situation started to be changed at last, by the pioneering works of paleoparasitologists in the continent. In Korea, Japan, China, and Siberia, the scientific analyses managed to reveal the fundamental aspects of the ancient parasite infections there [5-8]. This special section in The Korean Journal of Parasitology represents such a development of the paleoparasitological interest among researchers in Asia. This section is composed of multiple paleoparasitology reports from Asia, Europe, America, and the other areas. Briefly, Dufour et al. tries to …