12. The Black Death’s Tragic Origins Trace Back to Thousands of Years Before it Struck
The tragic pandemic that came to be known as the Black Death first appeared in Mongol-ruled China and Central Asia in the 1330s. Traveling along the Silk Road with merchants and Mongol armies, the disease took about fifteen years to reach Europe in 1347. However, although the plague itself first erupted in China, the culprit bacteria might have originated in Europe, thousands of years earlier.
In 2018, researchers found evidence of Yersinia pestis in a Swedish tomb dating back to 3000 BC. It may have caused a devastating plague thousands of years ago that led to the Neolithic Decline three millennia before Christ, when Europe’s population took a nosedive. It also caused Justinian’s Plague, a sixth-century pandemic that, as seen further down this list, rivaled the Black Death in lethality and devastation.