Human treponemal infections are caused by a family of closely related Treponema pallidum that give rise to the diseases yaws, bejel, pinta and, most famously, syphilis¹. Debates on both a common origin for these pathogens and the history of syphilis itself has weighed evidence for the “Columbian hypothesis”², which argues for an American origin, against that for the “pre-Columbian hypothesis”³, which argues for presence of the disease in Eurasia in the Medieval period and possibly earlier. While molecular data has provided a genetic basis for distinction of the typed subspecies⁴, deep evolution of the complex has remained unresolved due to limitations in the conclusions that can be drawn from the sparse paleogenomic data currently available. Here we explore this evolutionary history through analyses of five pre- and peri-contact ancient treponemal genomes from the Americas that represent ancient relatives of the T. pallidum pallidum (syphilis), T. pallidum pertenue (yaws) and T. pallidum endemicum (bejel) lineages. Our data indicate unexplored diversity and an emergence of T. pallidum that post-dates human occupation in the Americas. Together these results support an American origin for all T. pallidum characterized at the genomic level, both modern and ancient.

人类密螺旋体感染是由一个密切相关的梅毒螺旋体家族引起的，这些家族引起了雅司病、贝耶尔病、平塔病和最著名的梅 ¹ 毒病。关于这些病原体的共同起源和梅毒本身历史的辩论权衡了“哥伦布假说” ² 的证据，该假说认为起源于美国，而“前哥伦布假说” ³ 则认为该疾病存在于中世纪时期甚至更早的欧亚大陆。虽然分子数据为区分类型亚种 ⁴ 提供了遗传基础，但由于可以从目前可用的稀疏古基因组数据中得出的结论的限制，该复合物的深度进化仍未解决。在这里，我们通过分析来自美洲的五个接触前和接触周围古老的密螺旋体基因组来探索这一进化历史，这些基因组代表了梅毒螺旋体（梅毒）、梅毒螺旋体（雅司病）和梅毒螺旋体地方性（bejel）谱系的古老亲戚。我们的数据表明，尚未开发的多样性和梅毒螺旋体的出现晚于美洲人类居住的时间。这些结果共同支持在基因组水平上表征的所有梅毒螺旋体的美国起源，包括现代和古代的。