Plagued Silk Route: Yersinia pestis molecular signatures in a 17 th century camelid, Romania.. Plagued Silk Route

Black Death reached Europe through Mediterranean Sea ports after traded silk and fur pieces among other goods, were exported from Far East and China along commercial terrestrial routes, famously the Silk Routes; but contribution of caravan members and more specifically, the relative contribution of camels to plague sustained propagation along such long Silk Routes remains poorly understood. Here, six teeth (reported as R01-R06) collected from six 17 th-century camelids retrieved in Romania were investigated by direct total metagenomics and proteomics.