News Genetics

A 5,000-year-old mass grave harbors the oldest plague bacteria ever found

An ancient woman’s teeth might help reveal how the deadly disease got its start

mass grave

PLAGUED BONES  Bacterial DNA recovered from a Scandinavian woman buried in this mass grave around 5,000 years ago could yield clues to the origins of the plague.

Karl-Göran Sjögren/Univ. of Gothenburg

By Bruce Bower

- More than 2 years ago

A long-dead Scandinavian woman has yielded bacterial DNA showing that she contracted the earliest known case of the plague in humans.