The Black Death may have transformed medieval societies in sub-Saharan Africa

Now, some researchers point to new evidence from archaeology, history, and genetics to argue that the Black Death likely did sow devastation in medieval sub-Saharan Africa. But Gérard Chouin, an archaeologist and historian at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, and a team leader in the French National Research Agency’s GLOBAFRICA research program, first started to wonder whether plague had a longer history in sub-Saharan Africa while excavating the site of Akrokrowa in Ghana. She thinks this Black Death relative likely arrived in East Africa in the 15th or 16th centuries—after another, now-extinct Y. pestis strain had already burned through West Africa and perhaps beyond.

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Source: www.sciencemag.org