Caused by Yersinia pestis, plague ravaged the world through three known pandemics: the First or the Justinianic (6th-8th century); the Second (beginning with the Black Death during c.1338-1353 and lasting until the 19th century); and the Third (which became global in 1894). It is debatable whether Y. pestis persisted in European wildlife reservoirs or was repeatedly introduced from outside Europe (as covered by European Union and the British Isles). Here, we analyze environmental data (soil characteristics and climate) from active Chinese plague reservoirs to assess whether such environmental conditions in Europe had ever supported "natural plague reservoirs". We have used new statistical methods which are validated through predicting the presence of modern plague reservoirs in the western United States. We find no support for persistent natural plague reservoirs in either historical or modern Europe. Two factors make Europe unfavorable for long-term plague reservoirs: 1) Soil texture and biochemistry and 2) low rodent diversity. By comparing rodent communities in Europe with those in China and the United States, we conclude that a lack of suitable host species might be the main reason for the absence of plague reservoirs in Europe today. These findings support the hypothesis that long-term plague reservoirs did not exist in Europe and therefore question the importance of wildlife rodent species as the primary plague hosts in Europe.

• Klíčová slova
• Europe, Yersinia pestis, environmental conditions, natural plague reservoirs, rodent diversity,
• MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mor * epidemiologie   dějiny   MeSH
• pandemie dějiny   MeSH
• podnebí MeSH
• půda MeSH
• Yersinia pestis * MeSH
• zdroje nemoci MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH
• Geografické názvy
• Evropa MeSH
• Názvy látek
• půda MeSH

The bacterial pathogen Yersinia pestis gave rise to devastating outbreaks throughout human history, and ancient DNA evidence has shown it afflicted human populations as far back as the Neolithic. Y. pestis genomes recovered from the Eurasian Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age (LNBA) period have uncovered key evolutionary steps that led to its emergence from a Yersinia pseudotuberculosis-like progenitor; however, the number of reconstructed LNBA genomes are too few to explore its diversity during this critical period of development. Here, we present 17 Y. pestis genomes dating to 5,000 to 2,500 y BP from a wide geographic expanse across Eurasia. This increased dataset enabled us to explore correlations between temporal, geographical, and genetic distance. Our results suggest a nonflea-adapted and potentially extinct single lineage that persisted over millennia without significant parallel diversification, accompanied by rapid dispersal across continents throughout this period, a trend not observed in other pathogens for which ancient genomes are available. A stepwise pattern of gene loss provides further clues on its early evolution and potential adaptation. We also discover the presence of the flea-adapted form of Y. pestis in Bronze Age Iberia, previously only identified in in the Caucasus and the Volga regions, suggesting a much wider geographic spread of this form of Y. pestis. Together, these data reveal the dynamic nature of plague’s formative years in terms of its early evolution and ecology.

• Klíčová slova
• Yersinia pestis, ancient DNA, plague,
• MeSH
• chov zvířat dějiny   MeSH
• dějiny starověku MeSH
• fylogeneze MeSH
• genetická variace MeSH
• genom bakteriální * MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• migrace lidstva dějiny   MeSH
• mor * epidemiologie   dějiny   mikrobiologie   MeSH
• starobylá DNA MeSH
• Yersinia pestis * klasifikace   genetika   izolace a purifikace   MeSH
• zvířata MeSH
• Check Tag
• dějiny starověku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• zvířata MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• historické články MeSH
• Názvy látek
• starobylá DNA MeSH

The Black Death (1347-1352 CE) is the most renowned pandemic in human history, believed by many to have killed half of Europe's population. However, despite advances in ancient DNA research that conclusively identified the pandemic's causative agent (bacterium Yersinia pestis), our knowledge of the Black Death remains limited, based primarily on qualitative remarks in medieval written sources available for some areas of Western Europe. Here, we remedy this situation by applying a pioneering new approach, 'big data palaeoecology', which, starting from palynological data, evaluates the scale of the Black Death's mortality on a regional scale across Europe. We collected pollen data on landscape change from 261 radiocarbon-dated coring sites (lakes and wetlands) located across 19 modern-day European countries. We used two independent methods of analysis to evaluate whether the changes we see in the landscape at the time of the Black Death agree with the hypothesis that a large portion of the population, upwards of half, died within a few years in the 21 historical regions we studied. While we can confirm that the Black Death had a devastating impact in some regions, we found that it had negligible or no impact in others. These inter-regional differences in the Black Death's mortality across Europe demonstrate the significance of cultural, ecological, economic, societal and climatic factors that mediated the dissemination and impact of the disease. The complex interplay of these factors, along with the historical ecology of plague, should be a focus of future research on historical pandemics.

• MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mor * epidemiologie   dějiny   mikrobiologie   MeSH
• pandemie dějiny   MeSH
• starobylá DNA MeSH
• Yersinia pestis * genetika   MeSH
• zvířata MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH
• zvířata MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH
• Geografické názvy
• Evropa epidemiologie   MeSH
• Názvy látek
• starobylá DNA MeSH

Throughout history, humans have been afflicted by parasitic worms, and eggs are readily detected in archaeological deposits. This study integrated parasitological and ancient DNA methods with a large sample set dating between Neolithic and Early Modern periods to explore the utility of molecular archaeoparasitology as a new approach to study the past. Molecular analyses provided unequivocal species-level parasite identification and revealed location-specific epidemiological signatures. Faecal-oral transmitted nematodes (Ascaris lumbricoides and Trichuris trichiura) were ubiquitous across time and space. By contrast, high numbers of food-associated cestodes (Diphyllobothrium latum and Taenia saginata) were restricted to medieval Lübeck. The presence of these cestodes and changes in their prevalence at approximately 1300 CE indicate substantial alterations in diet or parasite availability. Trichuris trichiura ITS-1 sequences grouped into two clades; one ubiquitous and one restricted to medieval Lübeck and Bristol. The high sequence diversity of T.tITS-1 detected in Lübeck is consistent with its importance as a Hanseatic trading centre. Collectively, these results introduce molecular archaeoparasitology as an artefact-independent source of historical evidence.

• Klíčová slova
• ancient DNA, archaeology, diet, genetics, parasitology, trade,
• MeSH
• archeologie MeSH
• cizopasní červi klasifikace   fyziologie   MeSH
• dějiny 15. století MeSH
• dějiny 16. století MeSH
• dějiny 17. století MeSH
• dějiny starověku MeSH
• dějiny středověku MeSH
• feces parazitologie   MeSH
• genetická variace MeSH
• kulturní evoluce * MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• parazitologie MeSH
• počet parazitárních vajíček MeSH
• starobylá DNA analýza   MeSH
• trichurióza epidemiologie   dějiny   parazitologie   MeSH
• Trichuris genetika   fyziologie   MeSH
• velkoměsta epidemiologie   MeSH
• zvířata MeSH
• Check Tag
• dějiny 15. století MeSH
• dějiny 16. století MeSH
• dějiny 17. století MeSH
• dějiny starověku MeSH
• dějiny středověku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• zvířata MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• historické články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH
• Geografické názvy
• Německo epidemiologie   MeSH
• velkoměsta epidemiologie   MeSH
• Názvy látek
• starobylá DNA MeSH

The Black Death, originating in Asia, arrived in the Mediterranean harbors of Europe in 1347 CE, via the land and sea trade routes of the ancient Silk Road system. This epidemic marked the start of the second plague pandemic, which lasted in Europe until the early 19th century. This pandemic is generally understood as the consequence of a singular introduction of Yersinia pestis, after which the disease established itself in European rodents over four centuries. To locate these putative plague reservoirs, we studied the climate fluctuations that preceded regional plague epidemics, based on a dataset of 7,711 georeferenced historical plague outbreaks and 15 annually resolved tree-ring records from Europe and Asia. We provide evidence for repeated climate-driven reintroductions of the bacterium into European harbors from reservoirs in Asia, with a delay of 15 ± 1 y. Our analysis finds no support for the existence of permanent plague reservoirs in medieval Europe.

• Klíčová slova
• Yersinia pestis, climate-driven disease dynamics, medieval epidemiology,
• MeSH
• dějiny středověku MeSH
• epidemický výskyt choroby dějiny   MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mor epidemiologie   přenos   MeSH
• podnebí * MeSH
• Check Tag
• dějiny středověku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• historické články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH
• Geografické názvy
• Evropa epidemiologie   MeSH