A 5,000-year-old plague strain found in Latvia shows Y. pestis once spread slowly and wasn’t highly contagious. The oldest strain of Yersinia pestis — the bacteria behind the plague that caused the Black Death, which may have killed as much as half of Europe’s population in the 1300s — has been found in the remains … Continue reading Oldest Black Death Victim Was 5,000-Year-Old Hunter-Gatherer – Had Earliest Known Strain of the Plague