Not, as has been believed, the other way around.
The first recorded case in Europe is pegged to 1495 - three years after Columbus's first voyage.
Researchers George Armelagos, from Emory University, Molly Zuckerman, from Mississippi State University and Columbia University’s Kristin Harper say no evidence of an earlier infection is found in forensic examination of skeletal remains.
This pinpoints Columbus, and his return voyages as the primary vector in the disease, and disproves some four dozen studies done previously that got it wrong for decades.
History revisionists love the notion that the native American Indian populations were devastated by European diseases. In the case for smallpox, and plague, the Indians did suffer.
But the American natives likewise gave Europe back one of the most devastating bacterial infections Europe has ever seen. The Treponema pallidum bacteria ripped thru Europe like the black plague and left scars lasting to modern times.
