The new study, led by Kirsten Bos and Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, analyzed ancient DNA from skeletal remains in Mexico, Peru, Argentina, and Chile. Using state-of-the-art paleopathology techniques, the researchers reconstructed five genomes of Treponema pallidum, the bacterium responsible for syphilis and its related diseases, yaws and bejel. These genomes date back as far as 9,000 years, predating Columbus's voyages."We've known for some time that syphilis-like infections occurred in the Americas for millennia, but from the lesions alone, it's impossible to fully characterize the disease," explained Casey Kirkpatrick, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max...