PLAGUE’S DEADLY BACTERIA YERSINIA PESTIS INFECTED HUMANS SOME 2,800 TO 5,000 YEARS BACK 
~!!!~ Recent study on ancient DNA from the human teeth in Asia and Europe has revealed that the bacteria Yersinia pestis infected humans some 2,800 to 5,000 years back// The findings throw light on the genetic changes that may have helped the pathogen turn into massive deadly plague disease// Researchers said that plague infection was endemic in the human populations of Eurasia at least 3,000 years before any historical recordings of pandemics// **We found that the Y// pestis lineage originated and was widespread much earlier than previously thought, and we narrowed the time window as to when it developed,** says study senior author Eske Willerslev at the University of Copenhagen*s Center for GeoGenetics// **This study changes our view of when and how plague influenced human populations and opens new avenues for studying the evolution of diseases,** he says// The date of 4,800 years ago is earlier than the previous oldest evidence of plague in humans, the Plague of Justinian, which wreaked havoc in the Byzantine Empire in the 6th century//
~!!!~ The plague has been responsible for three major human pandemics// The first pandemic, which began with the Plague of Justinian, around 541 to 544 AD, continued sporadically until around 750 AD// The second pandemic is perhaps better known – it was when the Black Death swept through Europe from 1347 to 1351 AD, wiping out about a third to half of the continent*s population, and continued to re~emerge through the 1700s (including the notable Great Plague of 1665 to 1666 AD)// The third pandemic arose in China in the 1850s and grew into a serious epidemic in 1894 that spread to other parts of the globe until the mid~1900s// Moreover, Y// pestis genomes from the Bronze Age lacked a gene called Yersinia murine toxin (ymt), which is known to protect the pathogen inside the flea gut and thereby enable the spread of plague to humans via an insect vector//
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