Angela
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Well, we've speculated that something like this might have been a factor, and now a paper seems to find some support for it.
Early Divergent Strains of Yersinia pestis in Eurasia 5,000 Years Ago
http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(15)01322-7
"The bacteria Yersinia pestis is the etiological agent of plague and has caused human pandemics with millions of deaths in historic times. How and when it originated remains contentious. Here, we report the oldest direct evidence of Yersinia pestis identified by ancient DNA in human teeth from Asia and Europe dating from 2,800 to 5,000 years ago. By sequencing the genomes, we find that these ancient plague strains are basal to all known Yersinia pestis. We find the origins of the Yersinia pestis lineage to be at least two times older than previous estimates. We also identify a temporal sequence of genetic changes that lead to increased virulence and the emergence of the bubonic plague. Our results show that plague infection was endemic in the human populations of Eurasia at least 3,000 years before any historical recordings of pandemics."
I have to read the whole paper yet, but I wonder if they suffered from it (and perhaps occasionally tried to flee it), or they were like "Typhoid Mary", no symptoms at all, or very minor ones, like Europeans bringing measles etc. to the Amerindians.
Still, in both cases, there had to be elimination and suppression of some males or there wouldn't be such a sex bias in terms of the uniparental markers, yes?
Ed.
"Additionally, we estimated the age of the MRCA of all known Y. pestis to 5,783 years ago."
"However, based on the absence of crucial virulence genes, unlike the later y pestis strains that were responsible for the first to third pandemics, these ancient strains likely did not have the ability to cause bubonic plague, only pneumonic and septicemic plague. These early plagues may have been responsible for the suggested population declines in the late 4th millennium BC and the early 3rd millennium BC."
Other books on the plague posit that the original host was a rodent like creature that lived somewhere in the northern steppe. That's the estimated source for the Black Death outbreak.
These are the seven samples in which it was found...
"RISE00 Estonia Sope Corded Ware 2575–2349
RISE139 Poland Chociwel Unetice 2135–1923
RISE386 Russia Bulanovo Sintashta 2280–2047
RISE397 Armenia Kapan EIA 1048–885
RISE505 Russia Kytmanovo Andronovo 1746–1626
RISE509 Russia Afanasievo Gora Afanasievo 2887–2677
RISE511 Russia Afanasievo Gora Afanasievo 2909–2679"
Early Divergent Strains of Yersinia pestis in Eurasia 5,000 Years Ago
http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(15)01322-7
"The bacteria Yersinia pestis is the etiological agent of plague and has caused human pandemics with millions of deaths in historic times. How and when it originated remains contentious. Here, we report the oldest direct evidence of Yersinia pestis identified by ancient DNA in human teeth from Asia and Europe dating from 2,800 to 5,000 years ago. By sequencing the genomes, we find that these ancient plague strains are basal to all known Yersinia pestis. We find the origins of the Yersinia pestis lineage to be at least two times older than previous estimates. We also identify a temporal sequence of genetic changes that lead to increased virulence and the emergence of the bubonic plague. Our results show that plague infection was endemic in the human populations of Eurasia at least 3,000 years before any historical recordings of pandemics."
I have to read the whole paper yet, but I wonder if they suffered from it (and perhaps occasionally tried to flee it), or they were like "Typhoid Mary", no symptoms at all, or very minor ones, like Europeans bringing measles etc. to the Amerindians.
Still, in both cases, there had to be elimination and suppression of some males or there wouldn't be such a sex bias in terms of the uniparental markers, yes?
Ed.
"Additionally, we estimated the age of the MRCA of all known Y. pestis to 5,783 years ago."
"However, based on the absence of crucial virulence genes, unlike the later y pestis strains that were responsible for the first to third pandemics, these ancient strains likely did not have the ability to cause bubonic plague, only pneumonic and septicemic plague. These early plagues may have been responsible for the suggested population declines in the late 4th millennium BC and the early 3rd millennium BC."
Other books on the plague posit that the original host was a rodent like creature that lived somewhere in the northern steppe. That's the estimated source for the Black Death outbreak.
These are the seven samples in which it was found...
"RISE00 Estonia Sope Corded Ware 2575–2349
RISE139 Poland Chociwel Unetice 2135–1923
RISE386 Russia Bulanovo Sintashta 2280–2047
RISE397 Armenia Kapan EIA 1048–885
RISE505 Russia Kytmanovo Andronovo 1746–1626
RISE509 Russia Afanasievo Gora Afanasievo 2887–2677
RISE511 Russia Afanasievo Gora Afanasievo 2909–2679"