Plague Was a Deadly Human Disease 5,500 Years Ago, Ancient…

Plague Was a Deadly Human Disease 5,500 Years Ago, Ancient DNA Study Reveals For centuries, plague has been associated with medieval pandemics, crowded cities, and the Black Death. However, new research suggests the disease was claiming human lives thousands of years before the rise of civilizations. A study published in Nature has uncovered evidence that plague was already causing deadly outbreaks among hunter-gatherer communities around 5,500 years ago in the Lake Baikal region of Siberia. Researchers analyzed ancient DNA preserved in human teeth recovered from prehistoric burial sites and identified Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for plague, in a significant proportion of the individuals studied. Nearly 40% of the remains examined showed evidence of infection, indicating that plague may have been a major cause of death within these ancient populati