Where Did the Black Death Come From?

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Historians have been searching for an answer to this question for a very long time. The victims of the Black Death themselves were not sure where it started. A new paper in nature has used modern day DNA sequencing to try and find its origins. It was based on tombstones found in Kyrgyzstan, which dates back around 7-8 years before the Black Death. This suggests Central Asia is the most likely place that plague originated.

In this episode:

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08:29 How the Black Death got its start

The Black Death is estimated to have caused the deaths of up to 60% of the population of Europe. However, the origin of this wave of disease has remained unclear. In June, we heard from a team who used a combination of techniques to identify a potential starting point in modern-day Kyrgyzstan.

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Research article: Maloney et al.

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