Little too late: Pathogenic bacterium in 700-year-old skeleton identified
Tuesday, July 15, 2014 - 09:30
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Researchers have recovered a genome of the bacterium Brucella melitensis from a 700-year-old skeleton found in the ruins of a Medieval Italian village. Researchers used a technique called shotgun metagenomics to sequence DNA from a calcified nodule from the pelvic region of a middle-aged male skeleton excavated from the settlement of Geridu in Sardinia, an island off the coast of Italy. Geridu is thought to have been abandoned in the late 14th century.