TY  - JOUR
AU  - Susat, Julian
AU  - Haller-Caskie, Magdalena
AU  - Bonczarowska, Joanna H.
AU  - da Silva, Nicolas A.
AU  - Schierhold, Kerstin
AU  - Rind, Michael M.
AU  - Schmölcke, Ulrich
AU  - Kirleis, Wiebke
AU  - Sondermann, Holger
AU  - Rinne, Christoph
AU  - Müller, Johannes
AU  - Nebel, Almut
AU  - Krause-Kyora, Ben
TI  - Neolithic Yersinia pestis infections in humans and a dog
JO  - Communications biology
VL  - 7
IS  - 1
SN  - 2399-3642
CY  - London
PB  - Springer Nature
M1  - PUBDB-2024-05610
SP  - 1013
PY  - 2024
N1  - This study was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) through the CRC 1266 – project number 290391021.
AB  - Yersinia pestis has been infecting humans since the Late Neolithic (LN). Whether those early infections were isolated zoonoses or initiators of a pandemic remains unclear. We report Y. pestis infections in two individuals (of 133) from the LN necropolis at Warburg (Germany, 5300–4900 cal BP). Our analyses show that the two genomes belong to distinct strains and reflect independent infection events. All LN genomes known today (n = 4) are basal in the phylogeny and represent separate lineages that probably originated in different animal hosts. In the LN, an opening of the landscape resulted in the introduction of new rodent species, which may have acted as Y. pestis reservoirs. Coincidentally, the number of dogs increased, possibly leading to Y. pestis infections in canines. Indeed, we detect Y. pestis in an LN dog. Collectively, our data suggest that Y. pestis frequently entered human settlements at the time without causing significant outbreaks. 
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:39155318
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:001293192000001
DO  - DOI:10.1038/s42003-024-06676-7
UR  - https://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/record/613581
ER  -