[SunkenCiv]

This photos shows the the Sope I grave. [Credit: Harri Moora]

[Tax-chick]

Interesting. It looks like they’ve established that the Plague of Athens and the Antonine Plague could have been Y. pestis, because the pathogen existed then. However, there’s no specific evidence that it actually was.

I think a water-borne infection is far more likely for the Plague of Athens, given that it was triggered by the crowding in the city during the invasion of Attica.

[Ciexyz]

I’m interested in why some people have immunity to the disease and live to pass on their genes.

[43north]

Several years ago I attended a lecture by an anthropologist who had been doing excavations on the North Slope of Alaska for several years. He once unearthed the skeleton of an adolescent male whose remains carbon-dated at 14,000 years. He had evidence of tuberculosis in his joints.

There are not many “new” diseases, are there?

[dfwgator]

Plague Infected Humans Much Earlier Than Previously Thought

They had liberals even back then?

[ponygirl]

I had always thought that there was one Black Plague and that was it. In my genealogy research, I was lucky enough to discover a treasure trove of letters written by an ancestor between 1588-1595. By his letters, the plague broke out in London every summer. It was very ho-hum, “Oh do tell mum I’ll be coming out to the country, the plague is running thick here and bodies are stacked like cord wood in the streets...”