BERLIN — Scientists in Europe say they have pinpointed the origins of the Black Death, a bacterial plague that wiped out half of the continent’s population in the 14th century.
The findings counter other theories that the disease - which caused repeated outbreaks into the early 19th century and also left its mark across the Middle East and North Africa - might have first emerged in China.
Drawing on the work of historian Phil Slavin from the University of Stirling in Scotland, who had suggested the disease’s emergence might be linked to an unusual surge of deaths in a town in Central Asia in 1338-1339, researchers examined DNA from bodies found there.