近日，丹麦哥本哈根大学教授Eske Willerslev及其小组揭示了古代欧亚大陆人类病原体的时空分布。相关论文于2025年7月9日发表于国际顶尖学术期刊《自然》杂志上。

为了创建一个基于考古遗传学的人类病原体时空图谱，研究组筛选了来自1313名古人类的散弹测序数据，覆盖了37000多年的欧亚历史该研究组证明了古代细菌、病毒和寄生虫DNA的广泛存在，鉴定了来自136个属的492个物种的5486个个体命中。在这些发现中，有3384个涉及已知的人类病原体，其中许多以前没有在古代人类遗骸中被鉴定出来。根据其可能的宿主和传播类型对古代微生物物种进行分组，课题组人员发现大多数群体在整个采样期间都被识别出来。人畜共患病原体仅在6500年前左右被检测到，峰值大约是5000年前，恰逢牲畜的广泛驯化。他们的发现提供了直接证据，证明这种生活方式的改变导致了传染病负担的增加。他们还表明，在随后的几千年里，这些病原体的传播大大增加，与欧亚大草原的牧民迁徙相吻合。

据了解，纵观历史，传染性疾病对人类造成了毁灭性的影响，但关于其起源和过去动态的重要问题仍然存在。

附：英文原文

Title: The spatiotemporal distribution of human pathogens in ancient Eurasia

Author: Sikora, Martin, Canteri, Elisabetta, Fernandez-Guerra, Antonio, Oskolkov, Nikolay, gren, Rasmus, Hansson, Lena, Irving-Pease, Evan K., Mhlemann, Barbara, Holtsmark Nielsen, Sofie, Scorrano, Gabriele, Allentoft, Morten E., Valeur Seersholm, Frederik, Schroeder, Hannes, Gaunitz, Charleen, Stenderup, Jesper, Vinner, Lasse, Jones, Terry C., Nystedt, Bjrn, Sjgren, Karl-Gran, Parkhill, Julian, Fugger, Lars, Racimo, Fernando, Kristiansen, Kristian, Iversen, Astrid K. N., Willerslev, Eske

Issue&Volume: 2025-07-09

Abstract: Infectious diseases have had devastating effects on human populations throughout history, but important questions about their origins and past dynamics remain1. To create an archaeogenetic-based spatiotemporal map of human pathogens, we screened shotgun-sequencing data from 1,313 ancient humans covering 37,000years of Eurasian history. We demonstrate the widespread presence of ancient bacterial, viral and parasite DNA, identifying 5,486 individual hits against 492 species from 136 genera. Among those hits, 3,384 involve known human pathogens2, many of which had not previously been identified in ancient human remains. Grouping the ancient microbial species according to their likely reservoir and type of transmission, we find that most groups are identified throughout the entire sampling period. Zoonotic pathogens are only detected from around 6,500years ago, peaking roughly 5,000years ago, coinciding with the widespread domestication of livestock3. Our findings provide direct evidence that this lifestyle change resulted in an increased infectious disease burden. They also indicate that the spread of these pathogens increased substantially during subsequent millennia, coinciding with the pastoralist migrations from the Eurasian Steppe4,5.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09192-8

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09192-8