Overview
- An international team led by University College Dublin recovered 21 ancient sheeppox genomes from medieval parchments and Bronze Age sheep teeth, spanning roughly 1700 BCE to early modern Europe.
- Comparing the ancient and modern sequences, researchers estimate the major capripoxvirus lineages split between about 11,500 and 3,700 years ago, a period tied to animal domestication and sheep movements into Europe.
- The study finds the sheeppox genome has been relatively stable over the last few millennia, which helps narrow the time when key genetic changes that enabled the virus to infect livestock likely occurred.
- Multiple pages from the same important manuscripts, including the York Gospels, contained sheeppox DNA, and unexpected detections on calf- and goatskin parchments raise questions about rare cross-species infection or contamination during parchment processing.
- By showing that cultural archives preserve animal pathogen DNA, the work links deep-time viral history to living problems — researchers say the genomes could inform modern surveillance and responses to outbreaks that are still causing economic harm, such as one recently reported in Greece.