New DNA analysis has identified the oldest known outbreak of plague, dating back more than 5,000 years in a Siberian hunter-gatherer community. This discovery challenges the assumption that major infectious disease outbreaks only emerged with the rise of farming and larger settlements.
The plague bacteria found in these ancient remains indicate that epidemic diseases affected human groups well before the development of organized agriculture. This finding revises the timeline and conditions under which early disease outbreaks occurred, showing they were present among nomadic populations.
