Ten millennia of hepatitis B virus evolution
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) has been infecting humans for millennia and remains a global health problem, but its past diversity and dispersal routes are largely unknown. We generated HBV genomic data from 137 Eurasians and Native Americans dated between ~10,500 and ~400 years ago. We date the most recent common ancestor of all HBV lineages to between ~20,000 and 12,000 years ago, with the virus present in European and South American hunter-gatherers during the early Holocene. After the European Neolithic transition, Mesolithic HBV strains were replaced by a lineage likely disseminated by early farmers that prevailed throughout western Eurasia for ~4000 years, declining around the end of the 2nd…
Distinct Clones of Yersinia pestis Caused the Black Death
From AD 1347 to AD 1353, the Black Death killed tens of millions of people in Europe, leaving misery and devastation in its wake, with successive epidemics ravaging the continent until the 18th century. The etiology of this disease has remained highly controversial, ranging from claims based on genetics and the historical descriptions of symptoms that it was caused by Yersinia pestis to conclusions that it must have been caused by other pathogens. It has also been disputed whether plague had the same etiology in northern and southern Europe. Here we identified DNA and protein signatures specific for Y. pestis in human skeletons from mass graves in northern, central and southern Europe that …
Lesquin (Nord), ZAC du Mélantois, Au Chemin Perdu : la nécropole mérovingienne du hameau de Merchin (zone 2) (fin Ve siècle-début VIIIe siècle) : rapport de fouilles
La construction d'un complexe d'entreprises au hameau de Merchin, au sein d'une zone sensible de découvertes archéologiques, a motivé plusieurs prescriptions de fouille qui se sont déroulées entre l'été 2008 et l'été 2009. Elles ont porté sur un ensemble de structures néolithiques, sur un complexe à vocation agro-pastoral protohistorique/antique, et, enfin, sur une nécropole du premier Moyen Âge. Inscrite dans un terroir occupé de manière plus ou moins continue depuis le Hallstatt jusqu'au bas Moyen Âge, la nécropole mérovingienne de Lesquin est localisée sur la frange orientale du plateau du Mélantois. Elle supplante une occupation débutée au Hallstatt au travers de l'élément structurant l…