A research team led by the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and the University of Cambridge in the UK has successfully extracted ancient DNA from 214 known human pathogens on the Eurasian continent, and created a map of human infectious diseases spanning thousands of years, completing the largest study on the history of infectious diseases to date. This provides important new insights into how human animal interactions can profoundly change the pattern of human health. This achievement, published in the journal on the 9th, not only reveals the long history of the game between humans and pathogens, but also provides important reference for future public health strategies and vaccine design. Researchers analyzed the genetic information of over 1300 prehistoric human individuals over a time span of up to 37000 years. By studying ancient bone and tooth samples, they were able to track the historical evolution of diseases caused by bacteria, viruses, and parasites. The study found that the earliest evidence of zoonosis (that is, diseases transmitted from animals to humans, such as the COVID-19 epidemic in recent years) can be traced back to about 6500 years ago, and began to become more common about 5000 years ago. This indicates that as humans shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture and animal husbandry, the lifestyle of close contact between humans and animals has created ideal conditions for the spread of pathogens. The large-scale migration of grassland herders also played a key role in this process. For a long time, the scientific community has held the view that the rise of agriculture and animal husbandry has opened up epidemics of diseases. Now, DNA evidence clearly indicates that this transformation occurred at least 6500 years ago. Researchers say that these infections not only lead to disease outbreaks, but may also trigger population collapse, large-scale migration, and adaptive changes at the genetic level. This study has profound implications for future vaccine development and understanding of disease evolution. Professor Isaac Weiler from the University of Copenhagen said, "If we understand the origins and mutation pathways of past diseases, we can better predict future emerging infectious diseases, many of which originate from animals. Successful mutations in the past are likely to reappear, and mastering this knowledge can help evaluate whether current vaccines are still effective and determine whether new vaccines need to be developed to deal with mutant strains