Big Data Palaeoecology reveals significant variation in Black Death mortality in Europe

Abstract

The Black Death is the most reknown pandemic in human history, believed by many to have killed half of Europe's population. However, despite the advances in ancient DNA research that allowed for the successful identification of the pandemic's causative agent (bacterium Yersinia pestis), our knowledge of the Black Death is still limited, based primarily on medieval texts available for single areas of Western Europe. In our study we remedy this situation and we focus in particular on the scale of the Black Death mortality. We collected data on landscape change from 261 coring sites (lakes and wetlands) located in 19 European countries. We used two independent methods of analysis to evaluate whether the changes we see in the landscape at the time of the Black Death agree with the hypothesis that half of the population died within a single year in each of the 21 regions we studied. We discovered that while the Black Death had devastating impact in some regions, it had negligible or no impact in others. The inter-regional differences in the Black Death mortality across Europe demonstrate the significance of cultural, ecological, economic and climatic factors that mediate the dissemination and impact of the disease. The complex interplay of these factors, along with the identification of the pathogen that caused disease outbreaks, should be the focus of future research on historical pandemics.

Famines in medieval and early modern Europe—Connecting climate and society

“…The food shortage was exacerbated and prolonged by a concurrent large-scale outbreak of a highly lethal cattle disease between 1315 and 1325 (Newfield, 2009), which wiped out ≈ 60% of all livestock on the European continent (Slavin, 2012). Following the reduced population pressure on resources in the wake of the Black Death (1346-1353), and the subsequent recurrent plague epidemics, particularly in portions of western Europe (Izdebski et al, 2022), famines became less frequent until the mid-16th century when the population size exceeded pre-plague levels (Bardet & Dupâquier, 1997). Nevertheless, a near pan-Mediterranean famine occurred 1374-1375(Franklin-Lyons, 2022, and severe food shortage occurred after the back-to-back harvest failure of 1437-1438 (Camenisch et al, 2016;Jörg, 2008), although actual famine did not follow everywhere (Campbell et al, 2011).…”

Anthropogenic versus natural control on lacustrine sediment yield records from the French Massif Central

“…The drastic drop in SY may be an indirect consequence of two dramatic events: the Black Death in 1348-1352 CE and the Hundred Years War between 1337 and 1453 CE. Palaeoecological modelling suggested the French Massif Central was severely affected by the Black Death (Izdebski et al, 2021). About the Hundred Years War, only a royal letter mentions troubles in the area of Montcineyre (Chassaing, 1886; Boyer-Gouédard, personal communication; source: http ://www.compains-cezallier.com).…”