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Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe. The plague, Yersinia Pestis, the most feared disease in human history,

responsible for the horrific deaths of hundreds of millions of people across millennia.

Now the first historically recorded plague outbreak, the Justinian Plague, began in 541 AD,

but new evidence has revealed something startling.

Ancient DNA studies have discovered traces of Yersinia pestis dating back more than 5,000 years ago.

Proof that this disease was already devastating Eurasia in the late Neolithic, the late Stone Age period,

nearly 3,500 years earlier than the first recorded plague.

So where did it come from?

What was happening in Eurasia 5,000 years ago that sparked this outbreak?

Could this plague have triggered a Neolithic collapse, a Stone Age collapse,

and signalled the dawn of the Bronze Age in Europe.

Welcome to the ancients. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and today we are telling the story

of this prehistoric plague. Our guest is the science journalist and author, Laura Spinney.

Laura? science journalist and author, Laura Spinney. Laura, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast.

It's a pleasure to be here.

And it is good to see you in person.

We've done two episodes in the past on Proto-Indo-European and the Origins of Mythology.

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