the bubonic plague spread from asia to europe over the silk road land route.
the bubonic plague spread from asia to europe over the silk road land route.
over what land route did the bubonic plague spread from asia to europe?
silk road
in the late middle ages (1340–1400) europe experienced the most deadly disease outbreak in history when the black death, the infamous pandemic of bubonic plague, hit in 1347, killing a third of the european human population. some historians believe that society subsequently became more violent as the mass mortality rate cheapened life and thus increased warfare, crime, popular revolt, waves of flagellants, and persecution. the black death originated in central asia and spread from italy and then throughout other european countries. arab historians ibn al-wardni and almaqrizi believed the black death originated in mongolia. chinese records also showed a huge outbreak in mongolia in the early 1330s. research published in 2002 suggests that it began in early 1346 in the steppe region, where a plague reservoir stretches from the northwestern shore of the caspian sea into southern russia. the mongols had cut off the trade route, the silk road, between china and europe which halted the spread of the black death from eastern russia to western europe. the epidemic began with an attack that mongols launched on the italian merchants' last trading station in the region, caffa in the crimea. in late 1346, plague broke out among the besiegers and from them penetrated into the town. when spring arrived, the italian merchants fled on their ships, unknowingly carrying the black death. carried by the fleas on rats, the plague initially spread to humans near the black sea and then outwards to the rest of europe as a result of people fleeing from one area to another.
bubonic plague
in addition to arguing that the rat population was insufficient to account for a bubonic plague pandemic, sceptics of the bubonic plague theory point out that the symptoms of the black death are not unique (and arguably in some accounts may differ from bubonic plague); that transference via fleas in goods was likely to be of marginal significance; and that the dna results may be flawed and might not have been repeated elsewhere or were not replicable at all, despite extensive samples from other mass graves. other arguments include the lack of accounts of the death of rats before outbreaks of plague between the 14th and 17th centuries; temperatures that are too cold in northern europe for the survival of fleas; that, despite primitive transport systems, the spread of the black death was much faster than that of modern bubonic plague; that mortality rates of the black death appear to be very high; that, while modern bubonic plague is largely endemic as a rural disease, the black death indiscriminately struck urban and rural areas; and that the pattern of the black death, with major outbreaks in the same areas separated by 5 to 15 years, differs from modern bubonic plague—which often becomes endemic for decades with annual flare-ups.
black death