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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Plague reached Europe by Stone Age [bbc.com]

Plague was present in Europe during the late Stone Age, according to a study of ancient remains. Writing in Current Biology journal, researchers suggest the deadly bacterium entered Europe with a mass migration of people from further east. They screened more than 500 ancient skeletal samples and recovered the full genomes of plague bacteria from six individuals. These six variously date to between Late Neolithic and Bronze Age times.

The plague-positive samples come from Russia, Germany, Lithuania, Estonia and Croatia. "The two samples from Russia and Croatia are among the oldest plague-positive samples published. They are contemporary with [a] previously published sample from the Altai region [in Siberia]," co-author Alexander Herbig from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, told BBC News.

Yersinia pestis [wikipedia.org].

The Stone Age Plague and Its Persistence in Eurasia [cell.com] (DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.10.025) (DX [doi.org])

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