Scientists have attributed the demise of several ancient civilizations, including the Akkadian Empire and the Old Kingdom of Egypt, to factors such as climate change and changes in allegiance. However, a new study suggests that this may be because some pathogens have become extinct. Archaeologists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have unearthed remains from an ancient burial site in Crete, Greece, known as Hagios Charalambos. There, they found genetic evidence of two bacteria responsible for causing typhoid and bubonic plague.
The team, led by archaeologists Gunnar Neumann, chose the site because of its cool and stable conditions because DNA tends to decompose at higher temperatures. They began by digging up ancient bones and retrieving DNA from the teeth of 32 individuals who died between 2290 and 1909 BC.
In the genetic data, the team found common oral bacteria. In two of the individuals, they detected the presence of Y. pestis, while in the other two, two strains of Salmonella enterica, which causes typhoid, were found. The findings indicate that both pathogens existed during the Cretaceous Bronze Age and were transmissible at that time.
Although the researchers do not know how these pathogens are transmitted, they note that the lineages of S. enterica were found to have no traits that cause severe disease in humans.
“While it is unlikely that Y. pestis or S. enterica As the sole culprit for the social changes observed in the Mediterranean at the end of the 3rd millennium BC, we propose that, given the ancient DNA evidence presented here, the infectious disease should be considered as an additional contributing factor; the researchers wrote in the research paper published in the journal Current biology
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