Repeated plague infections across six generations of Neolithic Farmers

Nature ^ | July 10, 2024 | Frederik Valeur Seersholm et al

[SunkenCiv]

The emergence of agriculture during the Neolithization brought about one of the most profound lifestyle changes in the history of modern humans. The shift in subsistence strategy from hunting, fishing and gathering to farming paved the way for a marked increase in population density and the establishment of larger and more permanent settlements. However, the flourishing economy of the Neolithic came to a sudden halt in many regions of Northern Europe around 5300–4900 calibrated years before present (cal. bp), in which a marked reduction in the number of human remains radiocarbon-dated to this period suggests a population decline. Coined the Neolithic decline, this demographic bust coincides with the cessation of megalith building in the area and has been suggested to be one of the factors facilitating the Corded Ware expansion into Europe (4800–4400 cal. bp). Although several scenarios have been put forward, no single driving factor has hitherto been linked to this decline and this enigma is still heavily debated in the literature. Nevertheless, recent findings demonstrating that an ancestral form of Yersinia pestis was present in Sweden at this time could potentially solve this debate.

Yersinia pestis, the infectious agent of plague, split from its most recent ancestor Yersinia pseudotuberculosis some time within the past 50,000 years and has been infecting humans since prehistoric times. The vast majority of prehistoric plague genomes are from Late Neolithic and Bronze Age (LNBA) individuals dating to 4700–2400 cal. bp (refs. 7,8,9). These genomes fall within two distinct lineages that can be distinguished by the absence (LNBA−) or presence (LNBA+) of the ymt gene8. The ymt gene is crucial for the bacterium's survival in the flea digestive tract when the source is an infected mouse, black rat or human, and hence for the development of bubonic plague.

[dangus]

OK, I was guessing 1950 might’ve been some sort of baseline date from what you said. Thanks, I hadn’t known that.