How The Black Plague Evolved To Become One of the Deadliest Pandemics in History

Scientists have discovered the remains of a man who died from the bubonic plague 4,000 years before it took over the world.

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC]

00:04 The Black Death, also known as the Bubonic Plague,

00:07 was a pandemic that killed between 75 and 200 million people.

00:11 But now new findings reveal that the strain got its start

00:14 thousands of years before the historically significant disease

00:17 ever took the limelight in the 1300s.

00:20 According to the study, 5,000 years ago,

00:22 a hunter-gatherer human was bitten by a rat,

00:24 infecting him with a bacterial infection,

00:26 which was also likely the cause of his death.

00:29 This bacteria, though deadly to the man who was bitten,

00:32 lacked a specific pandemic-causing trait,

00:34 an improved method of transmission.

00:36 Researchers believe this because the exhumed Black Death-ridden remains

00:39 weren't alone. He was buried with three others,

00:42 none of whom were infected with the plague,

00:44 which the researchers say the bacteria, called Yersinia pestis,

00:47 must have mutated over the nearly 4,000-year period,

00:50 giving it the ability to go from creature to creature,

00:53 and more specifically, species to species via the bites of fleas,

00:57 confirming that early forms of these diseases weren't able to travel far,

01:01 and that over thousands of years the bacteria themselves adapted

01:04 to be more deadly in a more densely populated world.

01:07 world.

01:07 (upbeat music)

01:10 (upbeat music)