Plague claimed hunter-gatherer children in Siberia 5,500 years ago

Archaeological findings in Siberia have unearthed the earliest known human victims of the plague, dating back approximately 5,500 years. The remains of three children, two sisters aged ten and five, and an unrelated eleven-year-old boy, discovered in an ancient grave, all showed traces of plague bacteria DNA.

Researchers analyzed ancient DNA from 42 individuals buried at four sites around Lake Baikal. Plague DNA was detected in 18 individuals, with many buried in communal graves. The study, published in Nature, indicates that the plague disproportionately affected children between the ages of 8 and 11.

While the most famous plague pandemic, the Black Death in the 14th century, killed millions in Europe and was spread by fleas on rats, this ancient Siberian strain appears to have spread differently. It lacked a gene that enables transmission via fleas. Scientists believe this ancient plague likely jumped from marmots living in Siberia to humans and then spread through respiratory droplets or aerosols from person to person.

This discovery challenges previous assumptions that zoonotic diseases primarily spread to humans in densely populated agricultural societies. The hunter-gatherer communities of ancient Siberia, living more sparsely and nomadically, were still susceptible to devastating epidemics. The research also suggests the plague may have originated in Central or Northeast Asia and that this ancient strain was a distinct variant, not the same as the Yersinia pestis responsible for the Black Death, evolving around 5,700 years ago.