A new study maps infectious diseases across millennia and offers new insight into how human-animal interactions permanently transformed our health landscape.
A new study maps infectious diseases across millennia and offers new insight into how human-animal interactions permanently transformed our health landscape.
A research team led by Eske Willerslev, professor at the University of Copenhagen and the University of Cambridge, has recovered ancient DNA from 214 known human pathogens in prehistoric humans from Eurasia.
The study shows, among other things, that the earliest known evidence of zoonotic diseases – illnesses transmitted from animals to humans, like COVID in recent times – dates back to around 6,500 years ago, with such diseases becoming more widespread approximately 5,000 years ago. It is the largest study to date on the history of infectious diseases and has just been published in the scientific journal Nature.
Read More: University of Copenhagen
