{"id":352586,"date":"2026-06-18T02:35:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T21:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=352586"},"modified":"2026-06-18T02:35:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T21:05:26","slug":"recent-evidence-of-origin-of-the-black-death-a-complete-surprise-experts-say-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/06\/18\/recent-evidence-of-origin-of-the-black-death-a-complete-surprise-experts-say-national\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent evidence of origin of the black death a \u2018complete surprise\u2019 experts say – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Ancient Siberian graves discovered by scientists have revealed the oldest traces of one in all humanity\u2019s deadliest diseases: the plague, difficult established beliefs about its origins.<\/p>\n

Examinations \u2014 published within the journal Nature<\/a> on Wednesday \u2014 on skeletons of hunter-gatherers who lived some 5,500 years ago within the Lake Baikal region of Siberia revealed DNA traces of the bacteria that cause the plague.<\/p>\n

The plague has led to several devastating pandemics over centuries, most famously the \u201cBlack Death,\u201d which killed greater than 25 million people across Europe within the mid-1300s.<\/p>\n

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The invention suggests that the infectious disease \u2014 which scientists had thought began as a gentle illness \u2014 posed a lethal threat to humanity far earlier than was previously believed.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe findings fundamentally change how we expect in regards to the origins and early impact of 1 \u200bof humanity\u2019s most consequential pathogens,\u201d evolutionary geneticist Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen and the University of Cambridge, and senior creator of the study, told Reuters.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt doesn\u2019t fit the model,\u201d Willerslev also told the Recent York Times,<\/a> \u201cBut now we have to just accept the information.\u201d<\/p>\n

The researchers said the outbreak was particularly deadly for young people, judging from the burial sites that included children, and attributed this to genetic traits in these strains which can be now not present in today\u2019s iteration of the pathogen.<\/p>\n

At Lake Baikal, the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which causes the plague, was detected in 18 of 46 bodies examined, the next rate than in some medieval plague burial pits. University of Oxford evolutionary geneticist and study lead creator Ruairidh Macleod said finding evidence of a large-scale lethal plague outbreak amongst these \u200chunter-gatherers was a \u201ccomplete \u2060surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also noted that the traditional strains\u00a0lacked a gene required for efficient flea-borne transmission but possessed \u200ba genetic variant absent in later plague \u2060strains that may cause severe inflammatory complications to which children are especially vulnerable. Lots of those buried were children, sometimes siblings.<\/p>\n

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