News Archaeology

Ancient bacterial DNA hints Europe’s Black Death started in Central Asia

Archaeological and genetic data from a 1330s graveyard point to the bubonic plague’s origin

a drawing of the citizens of Tournai, Belgium digging graves and carrying caskets during the Black Death

Citizens of Tournai, Belgium, are illustrated here burying victims of the Black Death.  A bacterial precursor of strains that caused the medieval plague emerged in Central Asia during the early 1300s, a new study finds.

Pierart dou Tielt (fl. 1340-1360)/Wikimedia Commons

By Bruce Bower

- More than 2 years ago

Although best known as a plague that killed millions of Europeans from 1346 to 1353, the Black Death originated about a decade earlier in Central Asia, a new study suggests.