DNA analysis by a team of British-German researchers locates the original home of the Black Death in Central Asia in present-day Kyrgyzstan. However, the material of the study is very limited.
10:57 • Updated 2:14 PM
In the mid-14th century, an unprecedented plague spread to the world. The plague swept across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
The disease was extremely deadly. There are only estimates of the number of deaths, which range from 75 to 200 million. In eight years, perhaps more than half of Europeans died.
Initially, the disease was only called “plague” or “plague,” only a few hundred years later the epidemic became known by the name by which it is still known.
Massive over-mortality in Kyrgyzstan
The source of the black death has so far been shrouded in obscurity. It is thought to have started in Southern Russia, some in China or Central Asia.
Now, researchers have found evidence that the black death began in Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia.
A disproportionate number of people died between 1338 and 1339 near Issyk Kul, the country’s largest lake. For example, from 1339, the area has about twenty times the number of tombstones compared to the averages of the previous century.
Some of the tombstones are engraved with “plague” as the cause of death.
A team of British-German researchers analyzed DNA samples from the teeth of seven dead people buried west of Issyk Kul at the time. Yersinia pestis, a bacterium that causes swelling plague, was found in three of the deceased.
Published in Nature in the research report (you switch to another service) scientists say they have reconstructed two ancient Yersinia pestis heres and are one and the same strain. This strain, on the other hand, is the latest known common precursor of a plague bacterium that has since mutated to several lines.
The significance of the results is unclear
It has recently been suggested that the strain of Yersinia pestis that caused the black death was born a hundred years before the black death began. This has been based on historical, genetic and ecological data.
A new study, on the other hand, shows that the black death strain spread into an epidemic fairly soon after its birth.
The Black Sea environment, where the plague broke out in 1346, has been considered the source of Black Death in Europe. It is not known how the bacterium migrated from Central Asia, but scientists are proposing trade routes.
The research now published in Nature also has its limitations. The most significant limitation is that the sample is very small. Professor at the University of Otago, New Zealand says BBC (you’re switching to another service)that the final significance of the results of the study will only become clear once more data are available.
Corrected at 2:15 PM: Changed North America to North Africa incorrectly mentioned in the second sentence of the article.