Bubonic plague originated from Central Asia, research found
Scientists have solved a 600-year-old historical mystery by tracing the origin of the Black Death to Central Asia, according to information on Nature journal.
The bubonic plague decimated Europe and western Asia during the 14th century, ultimately killing up to 60% of the human population at the time. Despite the devastation, historians, archaeologists, and evolutionary biologists debated the pandemic’s geographical origin.
For decades, experts proposed various theories without definitive proof. The major breakthrough finally occurred when an international research team decided to extract ancient genetic material from human remains buried near Lake Issyk-Kul in modern-day Kyrgyzstan.
Initial clues emerged from local archaeological records at two specific regional cemeteries known as Kara-Djigach and Burana. Researchers noticed a disproportionate number of burials occurred over a remarkably brief period between 1338 and 1339.
Several tombstones featured detailed Syriac inscriptions explicitly attributing the sudden wave of deaths to an unnamed pestilence. Recognising this statistical anomaly, the scientific team targeted these specific graves to search for microscopic evidence of infectious disease.
Unlocking ancient genetic clues
By analysing the teeth of seven individuals excavated from these historical sites, scientists successfully identified the DNA of Yersinia pestis, the aggressive bacterium responsible for the bubonic plague.
Dental pulp serves as a highly effective biological time capsule because it protects blood-borne pathogens from environmental degradation over the course of centuries. This technique allowed researchers to sequence the ancient genome with remarkable clarity.
Resolving a geographic puzzle
Prior academic theories speculated that the disease emerged in locations stretching anywhere from the Caspian Sea basin to eastern Asia. Finding this ancestral bacterial strain in Kyrgyzstan firmly anchors the beginning of the mediaeval outbreak in the heart of Central Eurasia.
The disease likely transferred from these wild rodents to local human populations before spreading rapidly across the continent along established commercial trade routes.
