Ancient DNA recovered from Late Stone Age burial sites in south-eastern Siberia has provided evidence of what researchers say is the earliest known plague outbreak.
The findings, reported in Nature and covered by the Guardian, are based on the analysis of human remains from hunter-gatherer cemeteries near Lake Baikal dating to around 5500 years ago. Researchers detected DNA from Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague, in 18 of 46 people whose remains were examined.
The findings suggest that plague outbreaks occurred thousands of years before the disease became associated with densely populated agricultural societies and urban centres.