Ancient DNA confirms Yersinia pestis caused the Black Death
By
The Economist
Summary
In 2011, geneticists recovered centuries-old DNA from teeth buried in a medieval London cemetery (East Smithfield). They isolated genetic material from Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague, confirming that the Black Death (1346-1353), which killed perhaps half of Europe's population, was indeed an outbreak of plague. The article also notes that dense cities do not seem to have been necessary for outbreaks of the disease.
Source
Twitter / XAncient DNA confirms Yersinia pestis caused the Black Deatheconomist.comKey quotes
· 4 pulledIn 2011 a team of geneticists managed to recover centuries-old DNA from the teeth of bodies that had been buried in East Smithfield, a medieval cemetery in London.
Besides human DNA, they were able to isolate genetic material from Yersinia pestis, the species of bacterium that causes plague.
This let them confirm what historians had long suspected but had never quite been able to prove: that the Black Death, which killed perhaps half of Europe's population between 1346 and 1353, was indeed an outbreak of plague.
Dense cities do not seem to have been necessary for outbreaks of the disease.
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