@World History Encyclopedia
Researchers have recovered and analyzed the first ancient smallpox virus genomes ever identified in the Americas, providing the strongest direct evidence to date that the disease was introduced through European colonization.
Smallpox, caused by variola virus, played a major role in the catastrophic population decline experienced by Indigenous peoples after European arrival. Such was the extent of those declines, that many claim smallpox and other introduced diseases entirely reshaped societies, killing hundreds of millions of people.
Until now, however, there had been no direct genetic evidence linking colonial-era outbreaks in the Americas to strains circulating in the Old World.
The study, just published in leading international journal Science, analyzed ancient viral DNA recovered from two individuals from a local community buried in northern Chile between the late 15th and early 17th centuries. The researchers found that the viruses belonged to a now-extinct lineage of variola virus that sits evolutionarily between medieval European strains and the strains that circulated in later centuries.
