Study finds 4,000-year-old evidence of Black Death in Britain

A team of researchers has been able to unearth a strain of bacteria responsible for the infamous Black Death plague that occurred 4,000 years ago.

According to a study published in Nature Communications, it is the oldest evidence of the plague discovered in Britain. The team found a strain of a bacteria called Yersinia pestis in human skeletal remains buried at Bronze Age sites in Cumbria and Somerset.

The bacteria were found in the teeth of three individuals, including two young adolescents and a middle-aged woman. All three of them lived around the same time. The study further states that there is a strong possibility the children were infected with the plague at the time of their deaths, however, it is unclear if the plague caused their deaths.

The researchers took samples from as many as 34 skeletal remains and analysed their dental pulp for their study as it can trap the DNA of infectious disease, read the paper. Most of these individuals showed signs of fatal trauma.

This is the first time that cases of plague have been identified in Britain. It suggests that Y. pestis had spread from Europe to the British Isles.

"The finding of plague was completely unexpected, as this disease leaves no traces on the skeleton," said Professor Rick Schulting, one of the co-authors of the study and an archaeologist at Oxford University.

"At the moment we're not sure how this new evidence fits into the story of what happened at the site, and whether or not there may be some connection between the disease and the violence," he added.

The plague appeared in Britain in two different periods. It first emerged before or around 4,000 years ago and again about 1,500 years ago, CNN quoted a senior lecturer of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as saying.

Its traces were first found in Eurasia dating back to around 5,000 years ago, but it is still not clear how it originated and spread from Europe to Britain.

The Black Death was the first wave of the second plague pandemic of the 14th to early 19th centuries. It killed some 50–60% of the population in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, and an unaccountable number of people in Central Asia.

It was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, killing between 75 and 200 million people in a number of outbreaks.

In 2016, an extremely rare mass grave of plague victims was discovered at a 14th-century monastery hospital. DNA extracted from teeth samples taken from the skeletons also revealed the presence of Yersinia pestis, a zoonotic bacterium usually found in small mammals and their fleas.

The plague was a scourge of Europe in the Middle Ages and still surfaces regularly in parts of the developing world, although there has not been a pandemic since the 19th century. There are minor outbreaks in Madagascar during the same period every year. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, and Peru are the three most endemic countries.

According to the World Health Organisation, there are two main forms of plague infection: bubonic and pneumonic. Bubonic plague is the most common form.

Plague is transmitted to humans and animals by the bite of infected fleas, direct contact with infected tissues, and inhalation of infected respiratory droplets. It is now easily treatable with antibiotics, and an early diagnosis and treatment can save lives in most cases.

However, it can be a "very severe disease in people, with a case-fatality ratio of 30% to 60% for the bubonic type, and is always fatal for the pneumonic kind when left untreated," per the WHO.

The strain found in Britain was probably the pneumonic form of plague, per the study. The pneumonic form can prove fatal if it is not treated early. It is highly contagious and can cause severe epidemics.