Sheep helped spread early form of the plague thousands of years ago

By Stephen Beech

Sheep helped spread an early form of the plague, suggests new research.

The bacterium that causes bubonic plague has been identified in a 4,000-year-old sheep, indicating that livestock played a role in spreading the deadly disease.

An increase in livestock herding during the Bronze Age may have led to greater contact between humans, animals, and wild reservoirs of the plague, say scientists.

They explained that, around 5,000 years ago, a mysterious form of plague spread throughout Eurasia, only to disappear 2,000 years later.

Known only from ancient DNA, the ‘LNBA plague’ lineage has left scientists puzzled about its origin and transmission.

Now the ancient plague has been identified in an animal for the first time - a 4,000-year-old domesticated sheep excav