Bronze Age Yersinia pestis genome from sheep sheds light on hosts and evolution of a prehistoric plague lineage
Ian C. Light-Maka, Taylor R. Hermes, Raffaela Angelina Bianco, Lena Semerau, Pavel Andreevich Kosintsev, Valeriia Alekseeva, Donghee Kim, William Paul Hanage, Alexander Herbig, Choongwon Jeong, Christina Warinner, Felix M. Key
The paper presents a Yersinia pestis genome from a Bronze Age sheep, showing it belongs to a lineage previously only found in ancient humans and suggests transmission via livestock.
Cell · Aug 11, 2025Peer-reviewedGenetics