“The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 75 to 200 million people and peaking in Europe in the years 1346–53”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
Well, yeah. But that wouldn’t get the population down from some hundreds of thousands, probably, to 350.
I’m with ancesthntr. This just doesn’t make any sense.
I’m not qualified to comment on the genetic evidence, but I have studied history for several decades.
Let’s assume, without much evidence, that there were 1000,000 Jews in Europe in 1100, and somewhere around 500,000 in 1600.
Does it make any sense at all that the number dropped to 350 in the period between and then rebounded? I don’t believe it. I doubt it’s even mathematically possible, given the infant mortality rates of the time.