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The skulls of two victims of the plague. Credit: Mr Schweissing, SNSB – Association for Anthropology and Culture in Munich
A large international team of researchers has discovered a hitherto unknown level of diversity with regard to Justinian plague (also known as the first pandemic). In their article published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their study of the bacteria Yersinia pestis and what they learned about it.
Y. pestis is the bacteria responsible for several outbreaks during history. It was the source of bubonic, septicemic and pneumonic wounds. In this new effort, researchers wanted to know more about the first known pandemic that occurred because of Y. pestis infections. This plague, which stretched from about 541 to 750 people, was named after the Roman emperor Justinian I. Some historians have suggested that it would have killed about 25% of the population of the Roman Empire.
To learn more about Y. pestis During the first pandemic, researchers studied the remains of people killed and buried at sites in Germany, France and Spain. They also examined the remains of people buried at the same time on a British site to determine if the pandemic had ever touched the British Isles. The team studied the remains of 21 sites and was able to find and reconstruct the resources Y. pestis genome in eight cases. After sequencing, they compared what they found with the sequencing data from other studies of both old and modern forms of the bacterium.
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Necklace of a woman who died of the plague. Credit: S. Friedrich, Munich Archaeological State Collection
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Map and phylogenetic tree showing newly published (yellow) and previously published (turquoise) genomes. The shaded areas and the dots represent the epidemics recorded during the first pandemic. Credit: Marcel Keller
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Sampling of a tooth from an alleged plague burial. Credit: Evelyn Guevara
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Lunel-Viel (Languedoc-South). Victim of the plague thrown in a demolition trench of a Gallo-Roman house; late 6th-early 7th century. Credit: 1990; CNRS – Claude Raynaud
The team reports that it has actually found evidence of Y. pestis in Britain (on a site called Edix Hill), confirming that the pandemic has reached the British Isles. They also discovered a diversity of unique bacterial strains. They report having found eight in Germany, Great Britain, Spain and France. The researchers note that their findings show that there were several strains of the bacteria involved in the pandemic and that they were all closely related. They also reported that, despite their success in discovering new strains of the bacteria, they were still unable to determine the onset of the first pandemic. They suggest that the bacterium probably made its debut in Central Asia long before the pandemic was unleashed.
The plague may have persisted in Europe for a period of 300 years, including the "Black Death"
Marcel Keller et al. The genomes of ancient Yersinia pestis from Western Europe reveal early diversification during the first pandemic (541-750), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2019). DOI: 10.1073 / pnas.1820447116
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© 2019 Science X Network
Quote:
Researchers discover bacterial diversity in Justinian plague (June 5, 2019)
recovered on June 6, 2019
at https://phys.org/news/2019-06-bacterial-diversity-justinianic-plague.html
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