The spatiotemporal distribution of human pathogens in ancient Eurasia.

ABSTRACT: Infectious diseases have had devastating effects on human populations throughout history, but important questions about their origins and past dynamics remain¹. To create an archaeogenetic-based spatiotemporal map of human pathogens, we screened shotgun-sequencing data from 1,313 ancient humans covering 37,000 years of Eurasian history. We demonstrate the widespread presence of ancient bacterial, viral and parasite DNA, identifying 5,486 individual hits against 492 species from 136 genera. Among those hits, 3,384 involve known human pathogens², many of which had not previously been identified in ancient human remains. Grouping the ancient microbial species according to their likely reservoir and type of transmission, we find that most groups are identified throughout

SUBMITTER: Sikora M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12286840 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature