Researchers from the Francis Crick Institute found in Britain three cases of Yersinia pestis, of the bacterium that causes plague, age 4,000 years old. This is the oldest evidence of this disease in Britain to date, as stated in a publication they made in the journal Nature Communications.

The research team, in collaboration with the University of Oxford, the Levens Local History Group and the Wells and Mendip Museum, identified two cases of Yersinia pestis in human remains found in a mass burial in Somerset and one in a burial beneath a ring-shaped barrow monument. in Levens, County Cumbria.

The researchers took a DNA sample from the teeth of 34 people from the two sites, checking for the presence of the bacteria. They then analyzed the DNA and identified three cases of infection with the bacteria, in two children estimated to be 10-12 years old when they died, and in a woman aged 35-45. It is also possible that other people in the same burial sites were infected with the same plague strain, as pathogenic DNA is lost very quickly in samples that may be incomplete or corroded.

Plague has previously been identified in various people from Eurasia and has been dated to between 5,000 and 2,500 years ago, but has not been identified again in Britain during this period.

The wide geographic spread suggests that this strain of plague may have been easily transmitted. It was probably brought to central and western Europe around 4,800 years ago by people on the move, and now research suggests it spread to Britain.