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Ah, now I better understand what my medievalist colleagues were up to last summer in Chicago, and why they needed boiled deer 🧠 (it was as pink as my emoji) to tan the hide 🫣.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... is the correct link

Key findings: 🔹SPPV has threatened Eurasian food security for nearly 4 millennia. 🔹Major lineages diverged ~11,500–3,700 years ago, coinciding with sheep domestication.

In a scientific first, they successfully retrieved #pathogen genomes from medieval #parchment and paper #manuscripts 📖 - revealing that historical documents are an under-recognised source of ancient #disease data. (3/4) +1

The team recovered 21 novel ancient sheeppox virus (SPPV) genomes, dating back as far as ~3,700 years to the #Bronze Age. These are currently the oldest Poxviridae genomes ever recovered. (2/4)

Were the Sea Peoples agents of change?

The displaced white-collar workers? 😀

The displaced hordes of white-collar workers... 😅

Thanks 👍