国际研究团队通过古代DNA分析发现，鼠疫在5500年前就已经对西伯利亚贝加尔湖地区的猎人采集者构成致命威胁，远早于中世纪的黑死病大流行。1研究人员从46名古人遗骨中检测到18人携带导致鼠疫的耶尔森氏菌，检测率达到近40%，甚至高于某些中世纪鼠疫埋葬遗址。1
最大的两处墓地中出现了异常大量的儿童和青少年死亡者在短时间内埋葬的现象，表明鼠疫造成了严重的生命损失。1这些古代鼠疫菌株含有一种独特的超抗原，在历史鼠疫菌株中未曾发现过。1该超抗原可导致免疫系统产生异常强烈的反应，引发严重炎症，使感染极其危险。1研究由哥本哈根大学Eske Willerslev教授和剑桥大学Ruairidh Macleod等研究人员领导，成果发表在《自然》杂志。1
An international research team has discovered evidence that plague was causing devastating mortality among hunter-gatherers in Siberia's Lake Baikal region as far back as 5,500 years ago, millennia before the medieval Black Death pandemic 1. Genetic analysis of ancient human remains revealed that 18 out of 46 individuals tested—nearly 40 percent—carried DNA from Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for plague 1. This detection rate exceeded that found in some medieval plague burial sites 1.
The researchers documented an unusual pattern of death in the two largest cemeteries studied, where abnormally high numbers of children and adolescents were buried over short time periods 1. What made these ancient plague cases particularly lethal was a distinctive genetic feature: the historical bacterial strain harbored a unique superantigen—a toxin-producing genetic element—that has never been observed in later plague strains 1. This superantigen triggered an unusually intense immune system response, creating severe inflammation that rendered infections extraordinarily dangerous 1. The findings were published in Nature and were led by Professor Eske Willerslev of Copenhagen University and Ruairidh Macleod of Cambridge University, among other researchers 1.
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