The first outbreak of plague occurred in China more than 2,600 years ago before reaching Europe via Central Asia’s “Silk Road” trade route, according to a study of the disease’s DNA signature.

The findings flesh out long-held suspicions about the Chinese origins of the plague, which killed an estimated third of Europe’s population in the Middle Ages.

An international team of scientists sequenced 17 strains of Y. pestis, building a genetic “family tree” of pathogens that mutated from a common ancestor.

PhysOrg: Plague came from China: scientists

(via Kyle)