Black Death pandemic originated in Kyrgyzstan, ancient DNA from plague victims' teeth suggests

The Black Death was the initial wave of a plague pandemic that lasted nearly 500 years, and saw the rise of plague doctors with bizarre bird-like masks. (Wikimedia Commons: Public Domain)

In the Middle Ages, in what is now northern Kyrgyzstan, there was a bustling settlement called Kara-Djigach on a trade route known as the Silk Road.

But in AD 1338, the community was hit by an unknown plague that filled the cemetery with fresh graves. Some of the tombstones recorded the cause of death as "pestilence".