The outbreak occurred much earlier than the Middle Ages and had an unexpectedly high mortality rate.

Analyses of ancient DNA from hunter-gatherers near Lake Baikal in southeast Siberia around 5,500 years ago indicate that highly virulent Yersinia pestis emerged earlier than…

Long before it evolved the genetic machinery that would help make bubonic plague one of history's most feared diseases, the bacterium Yersinia pestis was already capable of…

Graves of hunter-gatherers in Siberia point to a deadly disease outbreak dating to some 5,500 years ago, a new DNA analysis finds