Neolithic plague was widespread, detected in at least 17% of the sampled population and across large geographical distances
About 5300 to 4900 years ago, the people inhabiting vast areas of Europe who introduced smarter farming methods to these locations, saw a period when their numbers dwindled rapidly. Scientists now say that the reason for this could have been the plague.
People inhabiting various parts of Europe is what is known as the Neolithic (New Stone) Age, affected radical lifestyle changes as they made the shift from the prehistoric hunter gatherers to farmers who would settle in one place, produce surplus crop and have enough security and leisure to look at things beyond subsistence, such as art and culture. These are also the people who are believed to have constructed the mysterious Stonehenge in England.
“However, the cause of this so-called Neolithic decline is still debated. Some argue for an agricultural crisis resulting in the decline, others for the spread of an early form of plague. Here we use population-scale ancient genomics to infer ancestry, social structure and pathogen infection in 108 Scandinavian Neolithic individuals from eight megalithic graves and a stone cist. We find that the Neolithic plague was widespread, detected in at least 17% of the sampled population and across large geographical distances. We demonstrate that the disease spread within the Neolithic community in three distinct infection events within a period of around 120 years,” scientists from the University of Copenhagen reported in the journal Nature.
In the course of their examination of the genome sequencing of the remains of some of these people, the scientists were also able to establish the relationships between them and also the nature of contemporary society. For example, in one instance they say: “Moreover, of all the individuals sampled from Frälsegården, we find that only eight were not related to anyone else at this site and, of these, six are women. This finding confirms the patrilineal social structure at the site and suggests that these six women were married into the family but did not produce offspring who were buried within the tomb. Although it is possible that these women did not give birth before dying, it is perhaps more likely that all their offspring were daughters who moved away and were buried in other tombs,” they wrote.
