Study Suggests Gerbils, Not Rats, may Have Fueled 14th Century European Plague Outbreak

A new study by a team of scientists from Norway and Switzerland has challenged the widely held view that communities of rats pushed plague to Europe in 14th century. They suggest that the plague bacteria could have sprung from populations of the great gerbil and other rodent species in Central Asia. The scientists investigated Europe's second plague pandemic that began with the infamous Black Death from 1347 to 1353 and continued on and off for four centuries. They ...

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