A new study using ancient DNA identifies what researchers describe as the oldest evidence of a lethal plague outbreak, dating to roughly 5,500 years ago in Siberia. Multiple reports say the remains come from hunter-gatherer burials in cemeteries near Lake Baikal and elsewhere in southeastern Siberia, where archaeologists found dozens of people, including many children. The analysis detects genetic material consistent with Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague.
The findings challenge earlier ideas that plague outbreaks were limited or mild in the distant past. Instead, the work suggests Y. pestis was already highly virulent before the rise of agriculture and large, densely populated settlements associated with later plague events. Sources also describe that the outbreak spread through small, mobile communities in devastating waves.
While researchers discuss that Y. pestis may have emerged earlier than previously estimated—separate from the timing of the known Late Neolithic Europe cases—the main points across outlets are the age of the burials, the presence of plague-associated DNA, and evidence that the people were killed by a deadly outbreak in prehistoric Siberian hunter-gatherer groups.
