The Black Death is considered the most dangerous epidemic in human history, but despite years of research, its geographical origin and chronology remain a mystery.
Now, a new study says the mystery was solved by tracing the disease back to 1338 in Kyrgyzstan today.
Researchers say the bubonic plague spread to the Mediterranean through merchant ships, causing a nearly 500 -year -old wave of a deadly disease called the Second Plague Pandemic.
As many as 200 million people died between 1346 and 1353 when the Black Death ravaged the Middle East and Europe, killing half of London’s population and 60% of Europeans.
It is believed to have arrived in the United Kingdom in 1348 aboard a ship that landed on the Dorset coast from Gascony, France, after which it quickly spread throughout the country.
The research team behind the new study is from the University of Stirling in Scotland, the Max Planck Institute in Germany and the University of Tübingen.
They examined ancient DNA (aDNA) from the teeth of skeletons found in graves near Lake Issyk Kul in the Tian Shan region of Kyrgyzstan.
According to historian Dr Philip Slavin of the University of Stirling, the scientists who assisted in the discovery were attracted to these areas after seeing an increase in the number of burials there in 1338 and 1339.
They learned that the graves at Kara Dzhigash and Purana were excavated in the late 1880s and about 30 skeletons were excavated from the graves, but they were able to trace them and analyze DNA taken from the teeth of seven. individual.
Sequencing, which determines the structure of DNA, showed that three individuals carried Yersinia pestis, a bacterium associated with the onset of the Black Death epidemic before it reached Europe.
Dr. said. “Our work raises some of the biggest and most exciting questions in history and shows when and where the most notorious murder began,” Slavin said.
Part of his work was the study of historical diaries of original excavations and the careful translation of Syriac inscriptions to match individual skeletons with tombstones.
Dr Maria Spiro from the University of Tübingen, first author of the study, said: ‘Despite the risks of environmental contamination and no guarantee that they will be protected by the bacteria, we were able to perform RNA sequencing from two to seven people. Most excitingly, we found DNA Plague bacteria in three individuals.
Researchers have previously linked the onset of the Black Death to different types of plague strains, the so -called ‘Big Bang’ of various plagues.
The exact date of this event, however, cannot be predicted with certainty and is believed to have occurred between the tenth and fourteenth centuries.
The research team has now compiled the entire genome of the ancient plague from the Kyrgyz regions and explored how it relates to the ‘Big Bang’ event.
“We have learned that the ancient dynasties of Kyrgyzstan are perfectly positioned at the node of this mega-diversification event,” Spiro said. Sabi.
In other words, we have seen the deep lineage of the Black Death and we know its exact date. ”
The bacteria live in wild rat populations around the world called plague reservoirs.
Researchers say that the ancient Central Asian dynasty that caused the epidemic in 1338-1339 around Lake Issyk-Kul probably originated in one of these reservoirs.
Co-senior author Professor Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute said: “We found that modern strains most closely related to the ancient strain are found in plague reservoirs around the Tian Shan Mountains, very close to if where the ancient strain is found today. indicates ancestral origin. In the middle ”.
The results were published in the journal Nature.
Source: Daily Mail
Source: Arabic RT
