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The present theory is that European resistance to AIDs (Which get stronger the further north and east you go) is a product of Europeans developing innate resistance to ALL disease including AIDS do to exposure to the Black Death in the 1300s. This finding does NOT kill off that theory, but puts some holes into it (I should say additional holes for it was a weak theory from day one).
The spread of Syphilis through Europe and Small Pox through the New World in the 1600s are example of a new disease being introduced into a population never before exposed to that disease. Rapid died offs is the norm in such situations. AIDS rapid spread in Africa and South East Asia looks more like the Spread of Small Pox in the New World in the 1500s AND the Spread of Syphilis in Europe during the same period. i.e. a New Disease into a population never exposed to that disease before. Not only must innate immunity be developed but social structures must be changed to fight off the new disease. Example of new Social Structure in Europe do to the Black Plague., was the further advancement of people living as families inside individual homes instead of in one big hall which had been the norm prior to the 1300s (And was the Norm Among Native Americans before Small Pox hit them hard).
The issue of where AIDS developed is hard to pinpoint, most research is aimed at a African starting point. Even the Russian trace AIDS to a Russian soldier who brought it back from Africa.
The biggest problem with this line of research is a British Case from 1959. A Doctor treated a patient for a disease the Doctor could NOT determined at that time. The Patient died but the doctor kept a sample of his blood for later research if needed. The Doctor forgot about it till the 1970s when AIDS his Britain. After a couple of years treating patients with AIDs, he remembered that case from 1959, looked up the blood sample and it came up positive for AIDS. Now this is generally dismissed as a possible contamination case, but what the doctor wrote in 1959 fits untreated AIDS. The biggest problem with this case is that the Patient had been a young Sailor on a Freighter, but only sailed once, to Leningrad and then back home to England, where the Patient came down with his aliment and died.
That case, the greater resistance to AIDs as you go north and East in Europe, the broader definition of Homosexuality in Northern and Eastern Europe, i.e. any people of the same sex who has sex with another person of that same sex (As oppose to the Southern European/Mediterranean/Arab definition, which restricts the term Homosexual to those males who are penetrated, the penetrating males are NOT viewed as Homosexual under this non-Northern European definition, a definition that has also developed in the US Prison system), all indicates some exposure to AIDS as a disease coming out of present day Russia. Given the controls the Czars and later the Communists imposed on the lower classes of Russia, AIDS may have been a very local disease that people caught, but could NOT spread beyond a certain group to to the broader definition of Homosexuality, the very strong restrictions on movement imposed by the Czars and the Communists, and the high level of resistance to AIDS among people outside of the group AIDS was restricted to (The reason for the high level of resistance is that AIDs would get out, expose the surrounding population, but the fall back to its corp group). These factors, along with the poor state of Medical care under the Czars, the Communists improved on it but under Stalin of anyone found anything bad, they knew the bearing of the bad news would be punished so anything NOT in the medical journal (i.e. AIDS cases) were just not reported and listed a something else UNTIL the 1970s after AIDS had been reported in the West, and thus the Soviet Doctors could report such cases in the Soviet Union.
Given the above, an argument can be made that AIDS may be a Russian or Eurasian disease. Someone with AIDS, took it with him to Africa in the early 1970s (another person with a different variation of AIDS took it with him to South East Asia at the same time, the Soviet Union was sending Advisers to both places at that time period, late 1960s to mid 1970s). In the virgin population of Africa and South East Asia (as to AIDS) AIDS took off, like Syphilis had done in the 1500s in Europe and Small Pox had done in the New World in the 1500s. This is by far the best explanation for the spread of AIDS, but it is unpopular for it would indicate a NON-African origin of the disease.
This latest discovery as to the Black Death puts even more holes in the theory that the Black Death made the Surviving Europeans better able to resist new diseases and thus force researchers to look elsewhere for where AIDS developed.
Side Note: We tend to view people as NOT moving prior to the 1800s, and most people did not move, but some people did move and moved thousands of miles. Among the Berbers of North Africa blonds occur, do to an influx of Blond people into the people who would become the Barbers about 5000 years ago (With additional blond blood lines with the influx of the Vandals around 450 AD into Northern Africa as the Roman Empire fell). The Reverse is also possible, a group of Africans, moving to what is now Russia about the same time period do to the drying up of what is now the Sahara Desert. The people living in that grasslands of 5000 years ago had to go somewhere, and may have skipped over Egypt (Where many other people from the Sahara moved to a developed Ancient Egypt) and then traveled north till they entered what is Now Russia, an area with low human population AND plenty of water at that time period. Nothing has been found to show such a move, but it is possible and that is how AIDs may have found its way into Russia.
Another alternative is during the expansion of the Persian Empire in the early 600s (Where, for the first time since the time of Alexander the great, a Persian army was on the Mediterranean Sea AND held Egypt, through only for about 10 years, then it collapsed under Pressure from what is called the Byzantine Empire, and 10 years afterward by the Arab conquest), Persia held onto not only Egypt but Yemen. Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, seeing this development asked and received help from Ethiopia in the form of Ethiopian troops being sent to Yemen in Southern Arabia to take Yemen back from Persia. In such an invasion AIDS could have come with the Ethiopia Troops and then taken North by the retreating Persians. Later one the Persians took it to the Persian speaking people of what is now referred to as the Former Soviet Central Asiatic Republics (Uzbek and Khazar are variations of Iranian the Language of Persia/Iran). The Ancient Scythians (By the late Rome Empire referred to as Avers, who were allied with the Slavs and the Persians during this period) could have been infected via Persia (If some Avars did NOT go directly to Yemen, something NOT unheard of at the time). Again prue speculation but could explain HOW AIDs entered Russia long after it had died out in Africa (If AIDs developed in Africa).
Just something to think about when it comes to diseases and their spread.
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