The tomb hid the oldest strain of plague (which could have caused the first epidemic in history)

In Sweden, researchers discovered the oldest strain of the famous bacterium Yersinia pestis – the microbe responsible for the contagion of one plague

This discovery suggests that the germ could have affected people all over Europe at the end of the stone age, in what could have been the first major epidemic in history of humanity.

The bacterium was discovered when investigators were badyzing old DNA databases for cases in which [1945908] infections could have killed before and after treatment. according to the study published December 6 in Cell .

An earlier badysis of a limestone tomb in Frälsegården, Sweden, revealed that about about 78 people had returned there. buried and all died in 200 years. Nicolas Rascovan biologist at the University of Aix-Marseille, said that the author of the study, Nicolas Rascovan would have died of an epidemic.

The limestone tomb was dated Neolithic or New Stone Age, time of the beginning of agriculture.

The researchers discovered a strain of plague hitherto unknown in the remains. mortals of a woman . Carbon dating suggests that she died about 4,900 years ago during a period known as Neolithic Decline when the Neolithic cultures of all the worlds. Europe have mysteriously declined.

According to the hip bones and other features of the skeleton, it is estimated that the woman was about 20 years old when she died. The plague strain found had a genetic mutation that could trigger pneumonic plague – the most lethal form of historical and modern plague – suggesting that the woman was probably dead from this disease.

Scientists determined that the old sample was the most well-known parent of the most recent bacterium plague.

Karl-Göran Sjögren archaeologist at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, said the discovery of plague "in a relatively marginal area of ​​the Neolithic world suggests networks of well-established and far-reaching contact "at a time favorable to the spread of the disease

In fact, it is possible that the revolutionary innovations of the time paved the way for the emergence and the spread of infectious diseases what could have

Archaeologists have pointed out that the discoveries did not mean that the plague had exterminated Neolithic humans, but could have influenced the Neolithic decline.