Viewpoint New Approaches to the ‘Plague of Justinian’

Abstract

This viewpoint is meant as a contribution to debate over the nature and significance of the ‘Justinianic Plague’, which struck Western Eurasia between the sixth and eighth centuries Ce, and the methodological challenges posed by attempting to reconcile historical evidence with that derived from the realm of the Natural Sciences. In recent years, major advances have been made in our genetic understanding of the Justinianic Plague. Yet growing scientific interest in the disease has coincided with a concerted effort amongst some historians to seek to downplay its historical importance. This article surveys our current state of historical and scientific understanding with respect to the sixth-century pandemic, responds to the recent attempts to argue that the disease had only a minimal impact on the societies that it struck, and considers how historians should respond to the burgeoning scientific evidence in order to take study of the plague forward. For co-operation between geneticists, environmental scientists, archaeologists and historians, it argues, offers the chance to transform our understanding of how, when and where the plague spread and to assess its impact across the Afro-Eurasian world as a whole, and not just on the Mediterranean, for which we have our best written sources.

From Neolithic Boom-and-Bust to Iron Age Peak and Decline: Population and Settlement Dynamics in Southern Sweden Inferred from Summed Radiocarbon Dates

“…Indications of a societal crisis and a population drop in northern Europe during the Nordic Late Iron Age have long been debated (e.g. Näsman & Lund, 1988), with causes such as the fall of the West Roman Empire, the Justinian Plague (Harbeck et al, 2013; Sarris, 2022), and, particularly, climate change due to volcanic eruptions in the sixth century ad (Sigl et al, 2015; Büntgen et al, 2016) being cited. Several studies have shown that a dust veil from large-scale volcanic eruptions during the sixth century ad , particularly in ad 536, 540, and 547, resulted in the cooling of the Northern Hemisphere on a global scale (Larsen et al, 2008; Sigl et al, 2015; Büntgen et al, 2016; Toohey et al, 2016).…”

A fascination for vaccination: Demographic differences in effectiveness perception and support for COVID-19 vaccine in Nigeria

“…COVID-19 is not the first coronavirus, only the most documented one (Liu, Kuo & Shih, 2020). The acclaimed foremost major pandemic named 'Justinianic Plague' and scientifically dated to have raged from circa 541 CE to 750 CE also claimed as many as 30 to 60 million lives (Mordechai, Eisenberg, Newfield, Izdebski, Kay, J. E., & Poinar, 2019;Sarris, 2022;Meier, 2020). Like the Black Death and the current COVID-19, the plague spread slowly and quickly across the globe, including Africa, the Americas, and the Middle East (Green, 2018;Chouin, 2018;Glatter & Finkelman, 2021).…”

A Peste Antonina: A Experiência E O Impacto De Uma Pandemia Na Antiguidade

“…Nas palavras de Monica Green, o superpoder da Genética é que ela "nos permite escrever a história da doença a partir da perspectiva do patógeno, não simplesmente da perspectiva necessariamente cega da observação humana (macroscópica)" (GREEN, 2021). É verdade que nós não podemos ainda contar com nada semelhante ao sequenciamento genético da bactéria Yersinia pestis e à descoberta de esqueletos infectados por esse agente causador da peste bubônica, os quais têm revolucionado os estudos sobre a Peste de Justiniano e a Peste Negra (GREEN, 2020;SARRIS, 2022). Não temos, por exemplo, nenhuma evidência, na forma de DNA, de patógeno antigo recuperado do esqueleto de uma vítima da Peste Antonina (HARPER, 2021, p. 194-195).…”