COPENHAGEN (dpa-AFX) - A new study revealed that the outbreak of plague has caused population collapse across northern Europe 5,000 years ago.
The research from the University of Copenhagen was based on DNA evidence from ancient bones and teeth of 108 individuals, which were excavated from nine burial sites in Sweden and Denmark.
'The analyses show that 18 of these individuals, 17 percent, were infected with the plague when they died. Furthermore, our results suggest that the youngest plague strain we identify might have had epidemic potential,' said Frederik Seersholm, a geneticist at the University of Copenhagen and lead author of the research.
The analyses, conducted using 'deep shotgun sequencing' method, found that plague might have ravaged the population in the end of Neolithic, known as the Neolithic collapse. Additionally, the genomic findings also indicated that the community suffered through three distinct waves of plague.
'We cannot - yet - prove that this was exactly how it happened. But the fact that we can now show that it could have happened this way is significant. The cause of this population decline, which we have known about for a long time, has always been the subject of debate,' said Seersholm.
During the study, the researchers were able to identify family tree of 38 people from Falbygden, Sweden, across six generations. They found that 32 percent of them were infected with plague.
Martin Sikora, a geneticist at the University of Copenhagen and co-author of the report, commented, 'This high prevalence of plague indicates that plague epidemics played a substantial role in the Neolithic decline in this region'.
'Indeed, it seems plausible that the decline seen in other parts of Europe was also in some way affected by plague. We do already have evidence for plague in other megalithic sites in different parts of northern Europe. And seeing how prevalent it was in Scandinavia, I would expect a similar picture to emerge once we study these other megaliths with the same resolution.'
Copyright(c) 2024 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
© 2024 AFX News
