Title:
Black Death Mortality Wasn’t as Widespread as Everyone Thinks
Published:
Ancient Origins, 13 February 2022
From the article:
The Black Death (1347–1352 AD) is the most infamous pandemic in human history. Advances in ancient DNA research have enabled researchers to identify the bacterium behind this terrible historical event (Yersinia pestis), and traced its evolution over time, however there are still huge gaps in knowledge about the plague’s demographic impacts. For the most part researchers have had to rely on medieval written sources from some parts of Western Europe to gain insight on how deadly the Black Death was. Now, an international team of researchers have pioneered a novel approach to evaluate the scale of the Black Death’s mortality across Europe, with some surprising results.