RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The Stone Age Plague: 1000 years of Persistence in Eurasia
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 094243
DO 10.1101/094243
A1 Aida Andrades Valtueña
A1 Alissa Mittnik
A1 Ken Massy
A1 Raili Allmäe
A1 Mantas Daubaras
A1 Rimantas Jankauskas
A1 Mari Tõrv
A1 Saskia Pfrengle
A1 Maria A. Spyrou
A1 Michal Feldman
A1 Wolfgang Haak
A1 Kirsten I. Bos
A1 Philipp W. Stockhammer
A1 Alexander Herbig
A1 Johannes Krause
YR 2016
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/12/15/094243.abstract
AB Molecular signatures of Yersinia pestis were recently identified in prehistoric Eurasian individuals, thus suggesting Y. pestis might have caused some form of plague in humans prior to the first historically documented pandemic. Here, we present four new Y. pestis genomes from the European Late Neolithic and Bronze Age (LNBA) dating from 4,500 to 3,700 BP. We show that all currently investigated LNBA strains form a single genetic clade in the Y. pestis phylogeny that appears to be extinct today. Interpreting our data within the context of recent ancient human genomic evidence, which suggests an increase in human mobility during the LNBA, we propose a possible scenario for the spread of Y. pestis during the LNBA: Y. pestis may have entered Europe from Central Eurasia during an expansion of steppe pastoralists, possibly persisted within Europe until the mid Bronze Age, and moved back towards Central Eurasia in subsequent human population movements.