DNA analysis of seven people who died in the 14th century suggests the Black Death may have originated in modern-day Kyrgyzstan.
Until now that was the oldest genomic evidence of Black Death, but the Kyrgyzstan sequence is ancestral to the one from Volga, so confirms Central Eurasia as the origin of the pandemic.
"That they were able to find these ancient plague samples was pretty remarkable," said Professor Holmes from the University of Sydney.In particular, he points to the fact the disease arose in the Tian Shen area just a matter of years before the Black Death was first reported as a major pandemic. Dr Slavin said the cemetery excavation found stashes of coins from as far away as Iran and northern Afghanistan, pearls that must have come from the Indian or Pacific Oceans, corals, shells, and silk.Jeremy Austin of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide said the dated tombstones were a "fantastic" opportunity to link the plague with specific dates and locations.But he was concerned about what he saw as a narrow margin for error.
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