When Did Plague Reach Britain? Archaeologists Find Earliest Victims

Haaretz ^ | May 30, 2023 | Ruth Schuster

[nickcarraway]

New paper detects plague bacteria in three of 34 bodies they tested in Britain, all dating to about 4,000 years ago. Research has also found good news for rat lovers

Though it is rare today, we remain gripped by fear of plague. There is no vaccine against it, though it is treatable with antibiotics as it’s caused by bacteria. It wasn’t treatable at all before the era of modern medicine, and periodically sowed terror and death throughout Eurasia and the Middle East.

But the burning questions of the day are: When did it emerge, and when did it first reach Britain?

The short answers are that the plague bacteria Yersinia pestis only emerged about 6,000 years ago, in Eurasia, and reached Britain 4,000 years ago, report Pooja Swali of London’s Francis Crick Institute, Pontus Skoglund, Thomas Booth and colleagues in a new paper in Nature Communications.

Unlike some of our oral bacteria that may have been accompanying us for over 40 million years, plague is a modern malady. Analysis of bacteria in ancient dental plaque shows that Y. pestis only diverged from the tuberculosis bacterium Yersinia pseudotuberculosis 6,000 to 5,700 years ago, in Eurasia.

As it spread following its emergence, Y. pestis branched off into five lineages – some of which have gone extinct.

In their paper, the team relates to an early pestis variant that they dub the “LNBA lineage” (standing for Late Neolithic and Bronze Age). Bacterial finds in ancient bodies show that LNBA was afflicting Asia almost 5,000 years ago, spreading within a couple of centuries to central and western Europe, likely by migrants galloping out of the Asian steppes. And now the team has detected the LNBA variant in three of 34 bodies they tested in Britain, all dating to about 4,000 years ago.

[Mark]

bkmk

[NFHale]

Re when did plague reach Britain:

The day liberals came

[DugwayDuke]

The article incorrectly claims there is no vaccine against the plague.
The first plague vaccine was developed by bacteriologist Waldemar Haffkine in 1897. He tested the vaccine on himself to prove that the vaccine was safe. Later, Haffkine conducted a massive inoculation program in British India, and it is estimated that 26 million doses of Haffkine’s anti-plague vaccine were sent out from Bombay between 1897 and 1925, reducing the plague mortality by 50%-85%.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks nickcarraway. The related topic links are in the next post.

[SunkenCiv]

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[chopperk]

Maybe rate were a primary food source 4k years ago.

[Bonemaker]

“When Did Plague Reach Britain?”

Whenever the first labour members got there.