Ancient DNA Pinpoints Culprit Responsible for World's First Pandemic

“Yersinia pestis was also responsible for causing the infamous Black Death”

This is in error - should read: “Yersinia pestis was also responsible for causing Democrats”

Related
800-year-old graves pinpoint where the Black Death began Ancient DNA from cemeteries in today’s Kyrgyzstan reveal earliest known victims of 14th century plague.

The Syriac engraving on the medieval tombstone was tantalizing: “This is the tomb of the believer Sanmaq. [He] died of pestilence.” Sanmaq, who was buried in 1338 near Lake Issyk Kul in what is now northern Kyrgyzstan, was one of many victims of the unnamed plague. By scrutinizing field notes and more photos from the Russian team that had excavated the graves in the 1880s, historian Philip Slavin found that at least 118 people from Sanmaq’s Central Asian trading community died in the epidemic.
https://www.science.org/content/article/800-year-old-graves-pinpoint-where-black-death-began

Wikipedia says something interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian

Earlier samples of Yersinia pestis DNA have been found in skeletons dating from 3000 to 800 BC, across West and East Eurasia.[43] The strain of Yersinia pestis responsible for the Black Death, the devastating pandemic of bubonic plague, does not appear to be a direct descendant of the Justinian plague strain. However, the spread of Justinian plague may have caused the evolutionary radiation that gave rise to the currently extant 0ANT.1 clade of strains.

Best book about the plague;

A Distant Mirror, The Calamitous Fourteenth Century

Author Barbara Tuchman, circa 1978 or 1979.

Extremely well researched, she also wrote The Guns of August, circa 1961, about the origins of World War One.

Plague of Justinian and Justinian Plague keywords, sorted:

Mini ice age was final death blow to Roman Empire, unusual rocks in Iceland suggest [04/26/2025]
Study reveals Roman Empire's expansion following volcanic eruption and plague [01/09/2025]
Justinianic Plague was nothing like flu and may have hit England before Constantinople [11/27/2021]
Infectious disease modeling study casts doubt on impact of Justinianic plague [05/04/2020]
"Work of Every Description Ceased" ~ First hand accounts of the Plague of Justinian, 6th century AD [04/01/2020]
Plague in humans 'twice as old' but didn't begin as flea-borne, ancient DNA reveals [07/28/2019]
Why 536 was 'the worst year to be alive' [11/16/2018]
The Justinian Plague of 562 A.D. an Electromagnetic Drama? [11/02/2015]
Plague Infected Humans Much Earlier Than Previously Thought [10/24/2015]
The Next Pandemic [09/02/2014]
Black Death may have scuppered Roman Empire [01/28/2014]
Plague decoded: Researchers link 2 of the most devastating pandemics in history [01/27/2014]
Why Halley's Comet May Be Linked to Famine 1,500 Years Ago [12/20/2013]
Plague Helped Bring Down Roman Empire [05/12/2013]
Deadly Black Death bug hasn't changed, but we have [10/12/2011]
Black Death Bacterium Identified: Genetic Analysis of Medieval Plague Skeletons... [09/03/2011]
Cause of the big plague epidemic of Middle Ages identified [10/20/2010]
Comet smashes triggered ancient famine [ March 536 AD ] [01/08/2009]
Study of ancient and modern plagues finds common features [11/21/2008]
Plague Victims Discovered After 1500 Years (Justinian) [04/10/2008]
The Chances Of Surviving The Black Death [03/29/2008]
Clues to Black Plague's Fury in 650-Year-Old Skeletons [01/28/2008]
Medieval DNA, Modern Medicine (Lessons From The Black Death) [10/16/2007]
Black Death Casts A genetic Shadow Over England [08/01/2007]
Lost documents shed light on Black Death [06/01/2007]
An Empire's Epidemic (Justinian Plague) [09/18/2006]
Europe's Chill Linked To Disease (Black Death Caused Little Ice Age?) [02/27/2006]
Medieval Plague May Explain Resistance to HIV [03/10/2005]
Black Death Mutant Gene Resists AIDS, Say Scientists (Virus) [01/04/2005]
Bubonic Plague Traced To Ancient Egypt (Black Death) [03/11/2004]
The viruses are out there, and they are out to get us [02/27/2003]
WERE THE DARK AGES REALLY DARK? [12/10/2002]
The Dark Ages: Were They Darker Than We Imagined? [09/24/2002]
Medieval Black Death Was Probably Not Bubonic Plague [04/15/2002]
Black Death 'Was Not Plague' Say Experts [04/12/2002]

It was more than just that they found the earliest known, the virus itself was a parent form that hadn’t mutated, pristine. So it’s pretty much a smoking gun that those Kygrsystanfijdfls were the first effected. I guess since it ended up hittting everyone else eventually anyway they got off easy dying before before all the economic and social disasters hit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yersinia_pestis

~~~~~
Y. pestis is a facultative anaerobic parasitic bacterium that can infect humans primarily via its host the Oriental rat flea
~~~~~

The Holy Roman empire was composed of grain farming communes. As with all grain farming communes HRE had rats in abundance.

I have those, uh, around here somewhere. I got the audiobook of Distant Mirror out of the library years ago and got bogged down in the description of the 100 years war warriors and their history. Probably should have bounced into some later chapter disks. Or, just ripped it into MP3 for later.

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