Key Points
The black death, or the Great Plague, of the 14th century was one of the deadliest epidemics in human history..
Its a clear example of the profound influence infectious disease outbreaks can have on society, economy, and culture..
The evidence also suggests that plague outbreaks were possibly common in Asia and Europe as early as the Late Neolithic-Early Bronze Age (LBNA), as implied by genetic material isolated from a Swedish tomb dated to 3000 BC...
In another recent paper, published in Nature Communications on May 30, researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, London, reported sequencing genetic material from two distant burial sites in the U.K. They studied 34 human remains in the Charterhouse Warren in Somerset and a ring cairn monument inLevens Park, Cumbria..
Indeed, the earliest isolates of Yersinia pestis with the ymt gene, and thus adapted for flea transmission, were possibly from samples from Russia and Spain estimated to be around 3,800 years and 3,300 years old, respectively..
