A plaque on both your houses: Exploring the history of urbanisation and infectious diseases through the study of archaeological dental tartar. A plaque on both your houses: Exploring the history of urbanisation and infectious diseases through the study of archaeological dental tartar

Human health experiences throughout much of (pre-)history remain clouded by a lack of reliable data on disease exposure and transmission. Archaeological dental tartar (mineralized plaque) entraps and preserves DNA and proteins from multiple oral and systemic infectious disease pathogens. This project aims to develop pilot data on oral microbial profiles and disease exposure within the historic period through the metagenomic analysis of archaeological dental calculus. This data is part of a pre-publication release. For information on the proper use of pre-publication data shared by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (including details of any publication moratoria), please see http://www.sanger.ac.uk/datasharing/