An ancient strain of plague may have led to the decline of Neolithic Europeans

A team of researchers from France, Sweden, and Denmark have identified a new strain of Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that causes plague, in DNA extracted from 5,000-year-old human remains. Their analyses, publishing December 6 in the journal Cell, suggest that this strain is the closest ever identified to the genetic origin of plague. Their work also suggests that plague may have been spread among Neolithic European settlements by traders, contributing to the settlements’ decline at the dawn of the Bronze Age. Continue reading “An ancient strain of plague may have led to the decline of Neolithic Europeans”

Ancient genomes suggest the eastern Pontic-Caspian steppe as the source of western Iron Age nomads

Here we present the ‘Abstract‘ of the corresponding paper by Krzewińska M, Kılınç GM, Juras A, Koptekin D, Chyleński M, Nikitin AG, Shcherbakov N, Shuteleva I, Leonova T, Kraeva L, Sungatov FA, Sultanova AN, Potekhina I, Łukasik S, Krenz-Niedbała M, Dalén L, Sinika V, Jakobsson M, Storå J, Götherström A. Continue reading “Ancient genomes suggest the eastern Pontic-Caspian steppe as the source of western Iron Age nomads”

The first horse herders and the impact of early Bronze Age steppe expansions into Asia

Here we present the ‘Abstract‘ of the corresponding paper by de Barros Damgaard P, Martiniano R, Kamm J, Moreno-Mayar JV, Kroonen G, Peyrot M, Barjamovic G, Rasmussen S, Zacho C, Baimukhanov N, Zaibert V, Merz V, Biddanda A, Merz I, Loman V, Evdokimov V, Usmanova E, Hemphill B, Seguin-Orlando A, Yediay FE, Ullah I, Sjögren KG, Iversen KH, Choin J, de la Fuente C, Ilardo M, Schroeder H, Moiseyev V, Gromov A, Polyakov A, Omura S, Senyurt SY, Ahmad H, McKenzie C, Margaryan A, Hameed A, Samad A, Gul N, Khokhar MH, Goriunova OI, Bazaliiskii VI, Novembre J, Weber AW, Orlando L, Allentoft ME, Nielsen R, Kristiansen K, Sikora M, Outram AK, Durbin R, Willerslev E. Continue reading “The first horse herders and the impact of early Bronze Age steppe expansions into Asia”

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