Analysis of skeletal remains belonging to a man who died 5,000 years ago has revealed that he was the world’s earliest plague victim found thus far. The man, who has been named RV 2039, was a hunter-gatherer who died when he was between 20 and 30 years of age and was buried close to the Baltic Sea in Latvia. While there were four people whose remains were excavated from the area, it is believed that RV 2039 was the only one who suffered from the disease.
By analyzing the man’s teeth and bones as well as sequencing his DNA, experts found that he suffered from the plague’s bacteria that was probably connected to a lineage that evolved about 7,000 years ago shortly after the bacterium