The last century has witnessed progress in the study of ancient infectious disease from purely medical descriptions of past ailments to dynamic interpretations of past population health that draw upon multiple perspectives. The recent adoption of high-throughput DNA sequencing has led to an expanded understanding of pathogen presence, evolution, and ecology across the globe. This genomic revolution has led to the identification of disease-causing microbes in both expected and unexpected contexts, while also providing for the genomic characterization of ancient pathogens previously believed to be unattainable by available methods. In this review we explore the development of DNA-based ancient pathogen research, the specialized methods and tools that have emerged to authenticate and explore infectious disease of the past, and the unique challenges that persist in molecular paleopathology. We offer guidelines to mitigate the impact of these challenges, which will allow for more reliable interpretations of data in this rapidly evolving field of investigation.

中文翻译：

---

古微生物学：古代病原体的诊断和演变。

上个世纪见证了对古代传染病的研究进展，从对过去疾病的纯医学描述到对过去人口健康的动态解释都采用了多种视角。高通量DNA测序的最新采用已导致对全球病原体的存在，进化和生态学有了更深入的了解。这项基因组革命导致人们在预期和未预期的情况下鉴定了致病微生物，同时还提供了以前被认为无法通过可用方法获得的古代病原体的基因组特征。在这篇综述中，我们探索了基于DNA的古代病原体研究的发展，以及鉴定和探索过去传染病的专门方法和工具，以及分子古病理学中持续存在的独特挑战。我们提供了减轻这些挑战影响的指南，这将使在这个快速发展的调查领域中对数据进行更可靠的解释。