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Yersinia pestis genomes reveal plague in Britain 4,000 years ago

View ORCID ProfilePooja Swali, Rick Schulting, Alexandre Gilardet, Monica Kelly, Kyriaki Anastasiadou, Isabelle Glocke, Tony Audsley, Louise Loe, Teresa Fernández-Crespo, Javier Ordoño, David Walker, Tom Davy, Marina Silva, Mateja Hajdinjak, Anders Bergström, Thomas Booth, Pontus Skoglund
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.26.477195
Pooja Swali
1Ancient Genomics Laboratory, Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
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  • For correspondence: pooja.swali@crick.ac.uk
Rick Schulting
2School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
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Alexandre Gilardet
1Ancient Genomics Laboratory, Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
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Monica Kelly
1Ancient Genomics Laboratory, Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
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Kyriaki Anastasiadou
1Ancient Genomics Laboratory, Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
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Isabelle Glocke
1Ancient Genomics Laboratory, Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
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Tony Audsley
3Independent Scholar, Wells, UK
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Louise Loe
4Oxford Archaeology, Osney Mead, Oxford, UK
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Teresa Fernández-Crespo
2School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
5Laboratoire méditerranéen de préhistoire Europe Afrique - UMR 7269, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Aix-Marseille Université, France
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Javier Ordoño
6Department of Archaeology and New Technologies, Arkikus, Spain
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David Walker
7Wells & Mendip Museum, Wells, UK
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Tom Davy
1Ancient Genomics Laboratory, Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
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Marina Silva
1Ancient Genomics Laboratory, Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
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Mateja Hajdinjak
1Ancient Genomics Laboratory, Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
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Anders Bergström
1Ancient Genomics Laboratory, Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
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Thomas Booth
1Ancient Genomics Laboratory, Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
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Pontus Skoglund
1Ancient Genomics Laboratory, Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
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Abstract

Extinct lineages of Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of the plague, have been identified in several individuals from Central Europe and Asia between 5,000 and 3,500 years before present (BP). One of these, the ‘LNBA lineage’ (Late Neolithic and Bronze Age), has been suggested to have spread into Central Europe with human groups expanding from the Eurasian steppes. Here, we show that LNBA plague was spread to Europe’s northwestern periphery by sequencing Yersinia pestis genomes from two individuals dating to ~4,000 cal BP from an unusual mass burial context in Somerset, England, UK. This represents the earliest evidence of plague in Britain documented to date. These British Yersinia pestis genomes belong to a sublineage previously observed in two Bronze Age individuals from Central Europe that had lost the putative virulence factor yapC. This sublineage is later found in Central Asia ~3,600 BP. While the severity of disease is currently unclear, the wide geographic distribution within a few centuries suggests substantial transmissibility.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • ↵* Email: pooja.swali{at}crick.ac.uk, pontus.skoglund{at}crick.ac.uk

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted January 26, 2022.
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Yersinia pestis genomes reveal plague in Britain 4,000 years ago
Pooja Swali, Rick Schulting, Alexandre Gilardet, Monica Kelly, Kyriaki Anastasiadou, Isabelle Glocke, Tony Audsley, Louise Loe, Teresa Fernández-Crespo, Javier Ordoño, David Walker, Tom Davy, Marina Silva, Mateja Hajdinjak, Anders Bergström, Thomas Booth, Pontus Skoglund
bioRxiv 2022.01.26.477195; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.26.477195
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Yersinia pestis genomes reveal plague in Britain 4,000 years ago
Pooja Swali, Rick Schulting, Alexandre Gilardet, Monica Kelly, Kyriaki Anastasiadou, Isabelle Glocke, Tony Audsley, Louise Loe, Teresa Fernández-Crespo, Javier Ordoño, David Walker, Tom Davy, Marina Silva, Mateja Hajdinjak, Anders Bergström, Thomas Booth, Pontus Skoglund
bioRxiv 2022.01.26.477195; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.26.477195

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