Scientists have discovered the remains of a man who died from the bubonic plague 4,000 years before it took over the world.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC]
00:04 The Black Death, also known as the Bubonic Plague,
00:07 was a pandemic that killed between 75 and 200 million people.
00:11 But now new findings reveal that the strain got its start
00:14 thousands of years before the historically significant disease
00:17 ever took the limelight in the 1300s.
00:20 According to the study, 5,000 years ago,
00:22 a hunter-gatherer human was bitten by a rat,
00:24 infecting him with a bacterial infection,
00:26 which was also likely the cause of his death.
00:29 This bacteria, though deadly to the man who was bitten,
00:32 lacked a specific pandemic-causing trait,
00:34 an improved method of transmission.
00:36 Researchers believe this because the exhumed Black Death-ridden remains
00:39 weren't alone. He was buried with three others,
00:42 none of whom were infected with the plague,
00:44 which the researchers say the bacteria, called Yersinia pestis,
00:47 must have mutated over the nearly 4,000-year period,
00:50 giving it the ability to go from creature to creature,
00:53 and more specifically, species to species via the bites of fleas,
00:57 confirming that early forms of these diseases weren't able to travel far,
01:01 and that over thousands of years the bacteria themselves adapted
01:04 to be more deadly in a more densely populated world.
01:07 world.
01:07 (upbeat music)
01:10 (upbeat music)