The debate about the origins of the medieval Black Death pandemic (AD 1346–1353) has focused on evidence from cemeteries in the Chüy Valley near Lake Issyk-Kul in modern-day Kyrgyzstan. These sites are thought to have victims of a 14th-century epidemic because of the tombstone dated 1338–1339 that attributes deaths to ‘pestilence’. In a new study, an international team of researchers reports