17 jun 2026
Ancient DNA provides evidence of earliest known plague outbreak
Discovery in Siberia suggests bacterium from raw marmots devastated hunter-gatherer tribes about 5,500 years ago The earliest evidence for an outbreak of plague has been uncovered at late stone age cemeteries in south-eastern Siberia where dozens of hunter-gatherers and their children were buried. Ancient DNA collected from the remains suggests the disease tore through the sparse communities in devastating waves that began about 5,500 years ago, at least two centuries after the bacterium responsible, Yersinia pestis , first emerged.
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Plague swept through groups of hunter-gatherers in southeastern Siberia 5,500 years ago, leaving dozens dead in its wake - with DNA from Yersinia pestis bacteria still trapped inside their teeth. University of Oxford ancient DNA researcher Ruairidh Macleod and his colleagues recently sequenced the telltale bacterial DNA in teeth from plague victims at four ancient cemeteries in the area around Russia’s Lake Baikal. The tragedy that befell these communities is now the earliest known plague outbreak, courtesy of the oldest strain of Y. pestis ever sequenced.
ars technica
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- 15:04ars technica
Hunter-gatherers in Siberia died of a plague outbreak 5,500 years ago
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