gerbil (Photo : Flickr/Norlando Pobre)
A new study published argues that gerbils in Asia, not rats, caused the outbreak of the Black Death plague during the late Middle Ages. The plague spread and eventually resulted in the deaths of over 70 million people worldwide.
The Black Death arrived in Europe in 1347. It was one of the deadliest plagues in the history of the world.
For a long time experts blamed black rats for spreading the plague from Asia to Europe. The theory was that it traveled through trading on the Silk Road, and then traveled on humans.
However, a team of researchers from the University of Oslo put the blame on Asia's Great Gerbils and their flea passengers, for transferring the plague to the European continent.
The scientific team evaluated records of tree rings that matched up with over 7,700 European plague outbreaks. Their goal was to determine if the climate at that time was rat-friendly.
The wet springs and following warm summers when there were outbreaks of the Black Death were not ideal for rats. However, when the weather was gerbil-friendly in Middle Asia, in later years it appeared in the harbor towns of Europe, according to Discovery.
If the Norwegian scientists' theory about gerbils and thedevastating plague is correct, historians must "rewrite that part of history," according to BBC.
The next task of the team will be to evaluate plague DNA from ancient human skeletons. If great differences in the DNA appeared after plague outbursts originating in Asia, then their theory that gerbils spread the Black Death is valid.
The Black Death plague disappeared in Europe after the 1800s. However, it still affects some countries, and caused 126 deaths in 2013.
