The source of the Black Death in fourteenth-century central Eurasiaстатья
Статья опубликована в высокорейтинговом журнале
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Дата последнего поиска статьи во внешних источниках: 20 июля 2022 г.
Аннотация:The origin of the medieval Black Death pandemic (ad 1346–1353) has been a topic ofcontinuous investigation because of the pandemic’s extensive demographic impactand long-lasting consequences1,2. Until now, the most debated archaeologicalevidence potentially associated with the pandemic’s initiation derives fromcemeteries located near Lake Issyk-Kul of modern-day Kyrgyzstan1,3–9. These sites arethought to have housed victims of a fourteenth-century epidemic as tombstoneinscriptions directly dated to 1338–1339 state ‘pestilence’ as the cause of death for theburied individuals9. Here we report ancient DNA data from seven individuals exhumedfrom two of these cemeteries, Kara-Djigach and Burana. Our synthesis ofarchaeological, historical and ancient genomic data shows a clear involvement of theplague bacterium Yersinia pestis in this epidemic event. Two reconstructed ancient Y.pestis genomes represent a single strain and are identified as the most recent commonancestor of a major diversification commonly associated with the pandemic’semergence, here dated to the first half of the fourteenth century. Comparisons withpresent-day diversity from Y. pestis reservoirs in the extended Tian Shan regionsupport a local emergence of the recovered ancient strain. Through multiple lines ofevidence, our data support an early fourteenth-century source of the second plaguepandemic in central Eurasia.