The origins of the deadly Black Death have been discovered more than 600 years after it entered the human population, scientists say.
The medieval bubonic plague was first recorded in the 14th century and marked the beginning of a nearly 500-year-old wave of deadly diseases called the Second Plague Pandemic.
The Black Death killed millions and was considered one of the greatest infectious disease catastrophes in human history.
Despite years of research, the geographical and chronological origins of the disease remain a mystery.
Our study puts to rest one of the biggest and most fascinating questions in history and determines when and where the most famous and scandalous killer of people began
Dr. Philip Slavin, University of Stirling
But researchers say they believe the Black Death first appeared in northern Kyrgyzstan in the late 1330s.
The team from the University of Scotland in Stirling and the German Max Planck Institute and the University of Tübingen analyzed ancient DNA (aDNA) taken from the teeth of skeletons found in a cemetery near Lake Issyk Kul in the Tien Shan region of Kyrgyzstan.
They were drawn to these sites after identifying a huge jump in the number of burials there in 1338 and 1339, according to Stirling University historian Dr. Philip Slavin, who helped make the discovery.
The team found that the Kara-Jigach and Burana cemeteries had already been excavated in the late 1880s, with about 30 skeletons taken from the graves, but were able to track them and analyze DNA taken from the teeth of seven people.
The sequence that determines the structure of DNA showed that three individuals carried Yersinia pestis, a bacterium that was linked to the onset of the Black Death epidemic before arriving in Europe.
“Our study puts to rest one of the biggest and most compelling questions in history and determines when and where the most famous and scandalous killer of people began,” said Dr. Slavin.
Part of his work included studying the historical diaries of the original excavations to compare individual skeletons with their tombstones, carefully translating inscriptions written in Syriac.
Dr Maria Spiro of the University of Tübingen and the first author of the study said: “Despite the risk of environmental pollution and the lack of guarantee that bacteria could be preserved, we were able to sequence aDNA taken from seven people found by two of these cemeteries.
“The most exciting thing is that we found plague bacteria DNA in three people.
Professor Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig added: “Just like Covid, the Black Death was an emerging disease and the beginning of a huge pandemic that lasted about 500 years.
“It’s very important to understand the circumstances under which he appeared.”
The origins of the Black Death have been debated by historians for centuries and have been postulated by medieval chroniclers since its appearance in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa 675 years ago.
The study, The Source of the 14th-Century Black Death in Central Eurasia, was published in the journal Nature.
Add Comment