News Anthropology

Plagues plagued the Bronze Age

DNA analysis shows Yersinia pestis strains infected people long before Black Death

human skeleton at Estonian site

PLAGUED  Bacterial DNA recovered from seven human skeletons, including this nearly 4,500-year-old find from an Estonian site, indicates that plagues spread through Bronze Age European and Asian populations.

Harri Moora

By Bruce Bower

- More than 2 years ago

Plagues killed millions of Europeans and Asians starting around 1,500 years ago. But previously unknown variants of the plague-causing bacterium Yersinia pestis infected people several thousand years earlier, a new study finds.