Two Chilean mummies have provided scientists with the earliest known smallpox genomes found in the Americas, dating between 1492 and 1631.
The genomes are the first-ever DNA evidence that proves European colonization introduced smallpox to the Americas, according to a paper that published Thursday (July 30) in the journal Science.
Smallpox, an infection caused by the variola virus, was one of the deadliest diseases in the world until it was completely eradicated in 1980. While the disease has been found in 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummies, the first documented outbreak in the Americas was in 1518, during the Spanish conquest of the Caribbean. The virus then spread rapidly throughout Central and South America.
Experts have estimated that the disease caused the deaths of three to four million Indigenous people
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