The Medieval Seminar: "How many plague pandemics? Bioarchaeological perspectives from 4000 BCE to 1710 CE"

Lecture in collaboration with the Climate and Environmental History Seminar

Abstract

There are at least three pandemics of plague that have ravaged human societies. The First Pandemic (541 – 750 CE), the initial outbreak is referred to as the Justinianic Plague, the Second Pandemic (1347 – 1830 CE), with the Black Death as the initial outbreak, as well as the Third Pandemic (1855 - ?). It was in connection with the last pandemic that Yersin identified Yersinia pestis as the microbe causing the disease. With the advent of aDNA studies, new line research was opened. Yersinia pestis has been identified in much older skeletal materials, such as from Neolithic passage tombs in Västergötland. Is this a plague pandemic? In this presentation I will address the history of plague pandemics from a bioarchaeological perspective and the association with climate change.

Torbjörn Ahlström, Professor of Historical Osteology at Lund University, is a human osteologist who has mainly researched archaeological skeletal materials from a demographic perspective and for studying plague and other diseases.