The bacteria, viruses and parasites that have plagued humans for over 37,000 years

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-07-10 01:00

Australia; International; WA

Woodcut of dying plague patients from 1532, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Australian and International researchers have identified the harmful bacteria, viruses and parasites that have infected ancient humans going back 37,000 years across Europe and Asia. They found that around 6,500 years ago, nasty bugs from animals, known as zoonotic pathogens, emerged, and they peaked about 5,000 years ago, coinciding with the widespread domestication of livestock. The authors say this transition profoundly affected human health and history throughout the millennia and continues to do so today.

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Journal/
conference: Nature

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Curtin University, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Funder: The Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre is supported by the Lundbeck Foundation (grant nos. R302-2018-2155, R155-2013-16338), the Novo Nordisk Foundation (grant no. NNF18SA0035006), the Wellcome Trust (grant no. UNS69906), Carlsberg Foundation (grant no. CF18-0024), the Danish National Research Foundation (grant nos. DNRF94, DNRF174), the University of Copenhagen (KU2016 programme) and Ferring Pharmaceuticals A/S to E.W. Extra support was provided by Germany’s Excellence Strategy (EXC-2077), project no. 390741603 ‘The Ocean Floor – Earth’s Uncharted Interface’. We thank A. Razeto and P. Selmer Olsen, for administrative and technical assistance. We thankfully acknowledge Illumina Inc. for collaboration. E.W. thanks St. John’s College, Cambridge, for providing a stimulating environment of discussion and learning. This work was further supported by the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences grant (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond grant no. M16-0455:1) to K.K. M.S. was supported by Maritime encounters, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, grant no. M21-0018. M.E.A. was supported by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions of the EU (grant no. 300554), The Villum Foundation (grant no. 10120) and Independent Research Fund Denmark (grant no. 7027-00147B). G.S. is supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship ‘PALAEO-ENEO’ (grant agreement number 751349). H.S. was supported by a Carlsberg Semper Ardens grant (no. CF19-0601) and a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant (grant no. 101045643). F.R. is supported by a Villum Young Investigator Grant (project no. 00025300), a Novo Nordisk Fonden Data Science Ascending Investigator Award (grant no. NNF22OC0076816) and by the ERC under the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme (grant agreement nos. 101077592 and 951385). F.V.S. was supported by the Lundbeck Foundation (grant no. R322-2019-2610). N.O., R.Å., L.H. and B.N. are financially supported by Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation as part of the National Bioinformatics Infrastructure Sweden at SciLifeLab. A.K.N.I. and L.F. thank the OAK Foundation.

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