Levens Park ring cairn in Cumbria, UK, where the plague bacterium was found in a Bronze Age woman’s tooth
Ian Hodkinson
The bacterium that causes the plague first arrived in Britain at least 4000 years ago, according to DNA evidence from ancient people. The earliest known plague strain, Yersinia pestis, was discovered in a skull buried in Latvia 5000 years ago. The Black Death, which occurred in the 14th century, is the most well-known outbreak of the plague, resulting in the deaths of a third of Europe’s population.
Researchers led by Pooja Swali at the Francis Crick Institute in London tested the teeth of 30 individuals from a mass burial site at Charterhouse Warren Farm in Somerset, and teeth from four individuals buried at Levens Park ring cairn in Cumbria, UK. The study revealed that the teeth of two children from Charterhouse and one woman from Levens Park contained the DNA of Y. pestis. This provides the first evidence that the plague had spread to Britain from continental Europe during the Bronze Age.
Swali stated that the strain found in the teeth was nearly identical to one discovered in Germany around the same time. This particular strain did not have the genetic mutation that enabled later forms of the bacteria to be transmitted by fleas.
Researchers believe that Y. pestis was widely spread across Bronze Age Britain due to the significant distance between the two burial grounds. Monica Green, an expert from the Medieval Academy of America, commented that the spread of a rodent disease to such an extent is noteworthy.
Hendrik Poinar, a researcher from McMaster University, expressed interest in the discovery, noting that mapping the distribution of ancient Yersinia strains is fascinating.
The remains found at Charterhouse exhibited signs of a violent death, raising questions about the reason behind their killings. Green suggests that the presence of the plague in the group may have contributed to their deaths. Similar plague-related burials have been found in medieval Europe, indicating fear-based responses to plague outbreaks, particularly during its initial arrival in the 1310s.
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