No particular genomic features underpin the dramatic economic consequences of 17 century plague epidemics in Italy.

The 17 century plague epidemic had a particularly strong demographic toll in Southern Europe, especially Italy, where it caused long-lasting economical damage. Whether this resulted from ineffective sanitation measures or more pathogenic strains remains unknown. DNA screening of 26 skeletons from the 1629-1630 plague cemetery of Lariey (French Alps) identified two teeth rich in plague genetic material.

When a lost "Petit Prince" meets Antoine de Saint Exupéry: An anthropological case report.

This case study reports the anthropological analysis of bones remains discovered on Riou Island (Marseille, France) and the story of two World War II fighter pilots. The discovery of bones on "The Fountain of the Greeks" square on Riou Island occurred in the 1960's and a first anthropological study described a 35-year-old man, about 1.77 m tall, buried since an estimated period between the 13th and 16th centuries.

Paleoproteomics of the Dental Pulp: The plague paradigm.

Chemical decomposition and fragmentation may limit the detection of ancient host and microbial DNA while some proteins can be detected for extended periods of time. We applied paleoproteomics on 300-year-old dental pulp specimens recovered from 16 individuals in two archeological funeral sites in France, comprising one documented plague site and one documented plague-negative site. The dental pulp paleoproteome of the 16 teeth comprised 439 peptides representative of 30 proteins of human origin and 211 peptides representative of 27 proteins of non-human origin.

Characterization of the Funeral Groups Associated with Plague Epidemics.

There are several scenarios regarding how burial sites in archaeological contexts are discovered. We will focus on two scenarios according to the degree of historical knowledge regarding the studied sector. The excavation may be performed in a known funeral place or a highly suspected place (e.

Restricted diversity of dental calculus methanogens over five centuries, France.

Methanogens are acknowledged archaeal members of modern dental calculus microbiota and dental pathogen complexes. Their repertoire in ancient dental calculus is poorly known. We therefore investigated archaea in one hundred dental calculus specimens collected from individuals recovered from six archaeological sites in France dated from the 14(th) to 19(th) centuries AD.

[Historical and biological approaches to the study of Modern Age French plague mass burials].

The "Black Death" and subsequent epidemics from 1346 to the early 18th century spread from the Caspian Sea all over Europe six hundred years after the outbreak of the Justinian plague (541-767 AD). Plague has been one of the most devastating infectious diseases that affected the humankind and has caused approximately 200 million human deaths historically. Here we describe the different approaches adopted in the study of several French putative plague mass burials dating to the Modern Age (16th-18th centuries).

Yersinia pestis Orientalis in remains of ancient plague patients.

Yersinia pestis DNA was recently detected in human remains from 2 ancient plague pandemics in France and Germany. We have now sequenced Y pestis glpD gene in such remains, showing a 93-bp deletion specific for biotype Orientalis. These data show that only Orientalis type caused the 3 plague pandemics.