The Justinianic Plague An inconsequential pandemic?

Existing mortality estimates assert that the Justinianic Plague (circa 541 to 750 CE) caused tens of millions of deaths throughout the Mediterranean world and Europe, helping to end antiquity and start the Middle Ages. In this article, we argue that this paradigm does not fit the evidence. We examin...

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Published inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 116; no. 51; pp. 25546 - 25554
Main Authors Mordechai, Lee, Eisenberg, Merle, Newfield, Timothy P., Izdebski, Adam, Kay, Janet E., Poinar, Hendrik
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States National Academy of Sciences 17.12.2019
SeriesPNAS Plus
Subjects
Archaeology
Byzantium
Datasets
Demographics
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
History, Medieval
Humans
Legislation
Middle Ages
Mortality
Pandemics
Pandemics - history
Plague
Plague - history
PNAS Plus
Pollen
Population Dynamics - history
Social Sciences
Yersinia pestis
Byzantium
Justinianic Plague
Late Antiquity
plague
first plague pandemic
Yersinia pestis
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Summary:Existing mortality estimates assert that the Justinianic Plague (circa 541 to 750 CE) caused tens of millions of deaths throughout the Mediterranean world and Europe, helping to end antiquity and start the Middle Ages. In this article, we argue that this paradigm does not fit the evidence. We examine a series of independent quantitative and qualitative datasets that are directly or indirectly linked to demographic and economic trends during this two-century period: Written sources, legislation, coinage, papyri, inscriptions, pollen, ancient DNA, and mortuary archaeology. Individually or together, they fail to support the maximalist paradigm: None has a clear independent link to plague outbreaks and none supports maximalist reconstructions of late antique plague. Instead of large-scale, disruptive mortality, when contextualized and examined together, the datasets suggest continuity across the plague period. Although demographic, economic, and political changes continued between the 6th and 8th centuries, the evidence does not support the now commonplace claim that the Justinianic Plague was a primary causal factor of them.
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Author contributions: L.M. and M.E. conceived of the project; L.M. and M.E. designed research; L.M. produced the visualizations; L.M., M.E., T.P.N., A.I., and J.E.K. performed research; L.M. analyzed data; and L.M., M.E., T.P.N., A.I., J.E.K., and H.P. wrote the paper.
Edited by Noel Lenski, Yale University, New Haven, CT, and accepted by Editorial Board Member Elsa M. Redmond October 7, 2019 (received for review March 4, 2019)
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1903797116