This is How the Black Plague Evolved To Kill So Many People

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

Transcript

00:00The Black Death, also known as the bubonic plague, was a pandemic that killed between 75 and 200

00:10million people. But now, new findings reveal that the strain got its start thousands of years before

00:15the historically significant disease ever took the limelight in the 1300s. According to the study,

00:215,000 years ago, a hunter-gatherer human was bitten by a rat, infecting him with a bacterial

00:25infection which was also likely the cause of his death. But this bacteria, though deadly to the

00:30man who was bitten, lacked a specific pandemic-causing trait and improved method of transmission.

00:36Researchers believed this because the exhumed Black Death-ridden remains weren't alone. He was

00:40buried with three others, none of whom were infected with the plague, which the researchers say the

00:45bacteria, called Yersinia pestis, must have mutated over the nearly 4,000-year period, giving it the

00:51ability to go from creature to creature, and more specifically, species to species via the bites

00:56of fleas, confirming that early forms of these diseases weren't able to travel far, and that

01:01over thousands of years, the bacteria themselves adapted to be more deadly in a more densely populated

01:06world.