Abstract: Brucella melitensis is a major livestock bacterial pathogen and zoonosis, causing disease and infection-related abortions in small ruminants and humans. A considerable burden to animal-based economies today, the presence of Brucella in Neolithic pastoral communities has been hypothesised but we lack direct genomic evidence thus far. We report a 3.45X B. melitensis genome preserved in an ~8000 year old sheep specimen from Menteşe Höyük, Northwest Türkiye, demonstrating that the pathogen had evolved and was circulating in Neolithic livestock. The genome is basal with respect to all known B. melitensis and allows the calibration of the B. melitensis speciation time from the primarily cattle-infecting B. abortus to approximately 9800 years Before Present (BP), coinciding with a period of consolidation and dispersal of livestock economies. We use the basal genome to timestamp evolutionary events in B. melitensis, including pseudogenization events linked to erythritol response, the supposed determinant of the pathogen’s placental tropism in goats and sheep. Our data suggest that the development of herd management and multi-species livestock economies in the 11th–9th millennium BP drove speciation and host adaptation of this zoonotic pathogen.An 8000 years old genome reveals the Neolithic origin of the zoonosis Brucella melitensis
Louis L'Hôte, Ian Light, Valeria Mattiangeli, Matthew D. Teasdale,
Áine Halpin, Lionel Gourichon, Felix M. Key & Kevin G. Daly
July 20, 2024
Nature Communications volume 15, Article number: 6132 (2024)
Calibrated years before the present?
Is that the same as BC, as in years Before Christ?
Words matter, and academics jump through hoops to avoid the obvious.
The entire world’s chronological calculating system is still based on the Christian revolution of 2,000 years ago, like it or not.
I love history, including learning about new discoveries of early man, but it’s time that the intellectual class faced the truth and stop looking for ways to deny the history they so ardently investigate.
It doesn’t mean they have to be believers, just recognize the truth of how humanity’s time on earth is chronicled.
Failure to do so lends an air of unwarranted bias to their findings, reading their research with one eyebrow raised at their intransigence.
Interesting results, though.