Origins of the Plague: Black Death Came from Central Asia
Scientists have located the origins of the Black Death in Central Asia. DNA analyses provide new insights into the pandemic.
The origins of the most devastating pandemic humanity has ever experienced — the outbreak of plague (also known as the Black Death), which killed more than half of Europe’s population within just seven years during the 14th century — have been debated by historians for centuries.
A study recently published in the scientific journal Nature has found genetic evidence that this pandemic emerged in the 13th century in the territory of modern-day Kyrgyzstan, before mutating into several strains and spreading across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.
In 2011, scientists sequenced the genome of Yersinia pestis for the first time — a bacterium that spread from rodents to humans via fleas and arrived in the Mediterranean in 1347 aboard trading ships carrying goods from the regions around the Black Sea, where it triggered a massive and deadly outbreak. Further genetic analyses of burial sites across Europe and southern Russia have shown that the diversity of plague strains increased explosively before the plague struck Europe.
By analysing genetic material from the teeth of seven corpses exhumed from Kara-Digach and Burana — two cemeteries near Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan — researchers have now identified a single plague strain that appears to be the most direct ancestor of the great diversification event that led to the Black Death pandemic.
«We found that the ancient strains from Kyrgyzstan sit right at the node of this massive diversification event«, says lead author of the study Maria Spyrou, a postdoctoral researcher in the history and evolution of infectious diseases at the University of Tübingen.
«It is like finding the place where all the strains converge — like with the coronavirus, where we have Alpha, Delta, and Omicron, all descending from that strain in Wuhan«, added the study's lead author, Johannes Krause, director of the Max Planck Institute.
Further evidence for these claims came from comparing the ancient strain found in Kyrgyzstan with plague strains from modern rodents. The scientists discovered that the modern plague strains most closely related to the ancient strains belong to wild rodents (such as marmots) living in the Tian Shan mountain range, very close to the two burial sites.
«We have not only found the ancestor of the Black Death, but also the ancestor of most plague strains circulating in the world today«, explains Krause.
Even though scientists still do not know many things — for example, which animals first transmitted the disease to humans — understanding the origins of the greatest pandemic in human history could help us prepare for future pandemics and possibly prevent them.
«Just like Covid, the Black Death was an emerging disease and the beginning of a massive pandemic that lasted around 500 years. It is very important to understand the circumstances under which it arose«, concluded Krause.
