| description |
The 14th-18th century Yersinia pestis pandemic caused devastating epidemics in Europe for almost 400 years. The reasons for plague’s persistence and abrupt disappearance in Europe are poorly understood, but could have been due to either the presence of now-extinct plague foci in Europe itself, or successive disease introductions from other locations. Here we present five Y. pestis genomes from one of the last European outbreaks of plague, from 1722 Marseille, France. The lineage identified has not been found in any extant Y. pestis foci sampled to date, and has its ancestry in strains obtained from victims of the 14th century Black Death. These data suggest the existence of a previously uncharacterized historical plague focus within reach of Mediterranean port cities that persisted for at least three centuries. This disease source may have been responsible for the many resurgences of plague in Europe after the Black Death. |