Black Plague killed farmers thousands of years before 14th-century Europe - study

Seventeen percent of Stone Age bodies analyzed in a recent study were found to have died from the Black Death—thousands of years before the Black Plague pandemic.

Researchers from the Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen, alongside researchers from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, revealed that of 108 bodies analyzed, 17 died of an early strain of the plague.

The Black Death, a devastating bubonic plague, swept Europe from 1346 to 1353. This catastrophic event resulted in the deaths of up to 50 million people, decimating nearly half of the continent's population during the 14th century.

Researchers revealed in a peer-reviewed study published in the scientific journal Nature that during the study, in which they analyzed the DNA found in the ancient teeth and bones of 108 bodies of Stone Age farmers, the plague might have caused an epidemic in Scandinavia in the Stone Age.

“Our results suggest that the youngest plague strain we identify might have had epidemic potential,” said DNA analysis lead, postdoc Frederik Seersholm.

The Black Death, then, may have contributed to the collapse in population numbers at the end of the Neolithic, known as the Neolithic decline.

This dramatic decrease led to the disappearance of significant portions of the farming population in Scandinavia and Northwestern Europe within a few centuries, around 5,000 years ago.

Technique of the researchers

The researchers used deep shotgun sequencing, a method involving looking into familial relations and diseases in the DNA analyzed by extracting highly detailed information from the archaeological material, even if the material is ancient, damaged, and degraded.

“We cannot yet prove that this was exactly how it happened. But the fact that we can now show that it could have happened this way is significant,” said Seersholm. “The cause of this population decline, which we have known about for a long time, has always been subject of debate.

“In connection with the population decline in the end of the Neolithic, both war and outbreaks of infectious diseases, including plague, have been suggested,” he continued. “There have been several theories involving the plague, and one of them suggested that the plague could not have caused an epidemic – but that assumption no longer holds.”

Associate Professor Martin Sikora explained that they mapped out plague lineages and “other microbes in the DNA data.” 

Researchers identified at least three plague outbreaks spanning six generations that they could trace in one of the studied families.

Until now, the Neolithic decline has been attributed to a combination of worsening agricultural conditions and a decrease in cereal production.