The Big Bang
December 28, 2020 10:20 AM Subscribe
The Four Black Deaths, by Monica H. Green, a historian of medicine and global health, proposes a new interpretation of the Black Death based on DNA evidence. "Together, the documentary and genetic records support the idea that there were four Black Deaths: four explosive proliferations of Yersinia pestis into new environments." The article is available on open access until 31 December, and has already been stirring up some excitement on Medieval Twitter.
Key takeaways:
1. The Black Death was even bigger than we thought. "It has been called the largest pandemic in human history. This essay argues that it was even larger than previously imagined."
2. It began in the thirteenth, not the fourteenth century, when the disease split into four separate strains and started spreading outwards from Central Asia, via grain shipments to the Mongol army. "The Black Death as documented for Europe was not itself the Big Bang but merely the aftershock."
3. It started in marmots and then jumped to humans. "The work of hunting, cooking, and tanning marmot hides would have put every hunter, cook, and tanner at potential risk of infection. If the advancing troops carried with them previously slaughtered carcasses or prepared skins .. then we get a scenario favoring long-distance transmission."
4. It probably wasn't noticed at first. "Despite its moniker, the Big Bang may have been a quiet event, largely unnoticed by human populations amid the far more visible chaos caused by the early Mongol conquests and the repeated displacements of peoples across central Eurasia. But amid that visible chaos, much may have been happening at a microbial level."
5. When it spread, it spread fast. This is "not a story of the creeping spread of disease, brought by wave after wave of traveling merchants .. Least of all is it a story of “rodents on the march” across vast landscapes .. No, the evidence of genetics suggests that, at least in the thirteenth century, plague moved with sudden rapidity, only to burrow into new host populations where its novelty, virulence, and isolation allowed it to flourish anew."
6. We have to stop thinking of the Black Death as a purely European event. "It is time to stop taking the urban European experience of the Black Death as the model against which all manifestations of plague must conform."
7. It could have played a part in the decline of the Mongol Empire. "The Ilkhanate collapsed right when plague was likely reemerging in the Caucasus in the 1330s, and the Golden Horde likewise collapsed in the Volga region upon a second wave of plague in 1359."
8. And in Africa too? "At the very least, for both West and East Africa and for China, there are now questions on the table about major disease events, hitherto undocumented in our histories."
Bonus podcast: Monica Green interviewed about her research.
Key takeaways:
1. The Black Death was even bigger than we thought. "It has been called the largest pandemic in human history. This essay argues that it was even larger than previously imagined."
2. It began in the thirteenth, not the fourteenth century, when the disease split into four separate strains and started spreading outwards from Central Asia, via grain shipments to the Mongol army. "The Black Death as documented for Europe was not itself the Big Bang but merely the aftershock."
3. It started in marmots and then jumped to humans. "The work of hunting, cooking, and tanning marmot hides would have put every hunter, cook, and tanner at potential risk of infection. If the advancing troops carried with them previously slaughtered carcasses or prepared skins .. then we get a scenario favoring long-distance transmission."
4. It probably wasn't noticed at first. "Despite its moniker, the Big Bang may have been a quiet event, largely unnoticed by human populations amid the far more visible chaos caused by the early Mongol conquests and the repeated displacements of peoples across central Eurasia. But amid that visible chaos, much may have been happening at a microbial level."
5. When it spread, it spread fast. This is "not a story of the creeping spread of disease, brought by wave after wave of traveling merchants .. Least of all is it a story of “rodents on the march” across vast landscapes .. No, the evidence of genetics suggests that, at least in the thirteenth century, plague moved with sudden rapidity, only to burrow into new host populations where its novelty, virulence, and isolation allowed it to flourish anew."
6. We have to stop thinking of the Black Death as a purely European event. "It is time to stop taking the urban European experience of the Black Death as the model against which all manifestations of plague must conform."
7. It could have played a part in the decline of the Mongol Empire. "The Ilkhanate collapsed right when plague was likely reemerging in the Caucasus in the 1330s, and the Golden Horde likewise collapsed in the Volga region upon a second wave of plague in 1359."
8. And in Africa too? "At the very least, for both West and East Africa and for China, there are now questions on the table about major disease events, hitherto undocumented in our histories."
Bonus podcast: Monica Green interviewed about her research.
6. We have to stop thinking of the Black Death as a purely European event. "It is time to stop taking the urban European experience of the Black Death as the model against which all manifestations of plague must conform."
I've always wondered about this. We learn in school that it came from Asia... so I asked a teacher once "so it was in Asia first then? What was it like there?" Answer: big fucking shrug. No one knows, no one cares, was the vibe I got.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:13 AM on December 28, 2020 [12 favorites]
I've always wondered about this. We learn in school that it came from Asia... so I asked a teacher once "so it was in Asia first then? What was it like there?" Answer: big fucking shrug. No one knows, no one cares, was the vibe I got.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:13 AM on December 28, 2020 [12 favorites]
Chouin and colleagues have now laid out extensive evidence, mostly from archaeology, of what seems to be widespread population contraction and urban abandonment in late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century West Africa.
Wow, so I wonder if this is going to change our understanding of West African history. It always seemed a bit weird to me that things seemed to go from Mansa Musa changing the economies of the Mediterranean simply by going on hajj and the Songhai Empire looking rather on the verge of becoming a Great Power, to Europeans breezing past Africa and rapidly fucking up the whole world in a matter of decades in the sixteenth century.
This is a really well-written paper. I was just intending to take a peek but ended up reading the whole thing straight through; lots of footnotes, so it's really shorter than it looks. The writing style has quite a swagger and panache, too: on page nine, the segue from the deck-of-cards analogy for the paleogenetics details to an exposition of population genetics founder effect within hosts was quite colorful—I could almost hear in my head a swoosh sound effect and envision the change in graphics theme from the pre-Ancient-Aliens-slash-Hitler's-Greatest-Secrets era of more dignified Discovery Channel / National Geographic documentaries. Thank you very much for posting.
Apparently important bit from the footnotes:
Plague kills too quickly to leave any perceptible trace on skeletal remains.So I'd assume that's a basic reason why the paleogenetics stuff Monica H. Green has integrated into previous historical and archaeological understanding here produces such an earthquake when the implications are worked out.
posted by XMLicious at 12:00 PM on December 28, 2020 [10 favorites]
This is so exciting -- I saved the PDF and already updated my powerpoint for my intro to European history class. I hope the author's plea to fund big history as well as big science is taken to heart. As a history teacher I have to fight constantly against the idea that the discipline is only for nerds who like irrelevant trivia and there is no meaningful application of historical knowledge in "worthwhile" pursuits of science and engineering. I can't wait to show students this article that yes, science and history DO go together!
posted by lilac girl at 12:00 PM on December 28, 2020 [18 favorites]
posted by lilac girl at 12:00 PM on December 28, 2020 [18 favorites]
and related : The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire Most excellent book!
posted by robbyrobs at 12:09 PM on December 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by robbyrobs at 12:09 PM on December 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
update I checked my email for the first time all winter break and there was a message from one of my super-science students who's having a crisis of faith and wondering if they should be a history major after all, so guess who's getting this article.
posted by lilac girl at 12:15 PM on December 28, 2020 [17 favorites]
posted by lilac girl at 12:15 PM on December 28, 2020 [17 favorites]
Ask a Mortician recently did an episode about the San Francisco outbreak.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:36 PM on December 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:36 PM on December 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
Definitely agreed that this is a well written paper; I've already flicked it off to some friends that will be interested, but wouldn't usually be able to penetrate the dense thickets of Academese to read a journal article.
I find the premise that plague events can be lost in the history of war time far too plausible; it fits right in with the forgotten history of the little people. If the majority of people dying are already struggling refugees, then a well heeled writer might barely notice it when there is far more exciting things with swords and horses to be documenting.
In our time look at the return of diseases such as diphtheria to Syria; sure if you pay attention you'll see some articles about them, but they hardly compare to the reams written about the shooting.
posted by fido~depravo at 12:40 PM on December 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
I find the premise that plague events can be lost in the history of war time far too plausible; it fits right in with the forgotten history of the little people. If the majority of people dying are already struggling refugees, then a well heeled writer might barely notice it when there is far more exciting things with swords and horses to be documenting.
In our time look at the return of diseases such as diphtheria to Syria; sure if you pay attention you'll see some articles about them, but they hardly compare to the reams written about the shooting.
posted by fido~depravo at 12:40 PM on December 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
Ever since a marmot ate my shirt on a backpacking trip, I've known those little fuckers are capable of great evil.
posted by medusa at 12:52 PM on December 28, 2020 [17 favorites]
posted by medusa at 12:52 PM on December 28, 2020 [17 favorites]
It no doubt had a shirt eating grin thereafter.
posted by y2karl at 1:59 PM on December 28, 2020 [18 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 1:59 PM on December 28, 2020 [18 favorites]
Oke! and thanks. I'll have to give that some attention. Nils Stenseth's group [2015 Climate-driven introduction of the Black Death and successive plague reintroductions into Europe] put sequential European plague introductions down to rainfall fluctuations in Kazakhstan. That paper is not without its statistical problems but it mobilises a different category of historical [tree rings] data.
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:37 PM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:37 PM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
oooh looking forward to digging into this after work!! thanks
posted by supermedusa at 2:48 PM on December 28, 2020
posted by supermedusa at 2:48 PM on December 28, 2020
Huh. The Manchurian plague outbreak is also thought to have jumped from marmots. It spread by air with a 100% fatality rate and is probably best known for inventing modern epidemic response, including cloth masks.
posted by BungaDunga at 3:12 PM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 3:12 PM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
The Manchurian plague outbreak is also thought to have jumped from marmots.
I may have to extract vengeance
posted by medusa at 3:15 PM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
I may have to extract vengeance
posted by medusa at 3:15 PM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
Those interested in marmot cuisine should check out the 2017 Barbecue documentary, there's an amazing section with present-day Mongolians cooking up a whole marmot, skin still on, over a fire
posted by genmonster at 4:43 PM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by genmonster at 4:43 PM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
sounds like the manchurian outbreak was pneumonic plague, which is generally 100% lethal.
posted by supermedusa at 4:55 PM on December 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 4:55 PM on December 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
If anything’s going to do us some harm, it’s
Those flea-bitten, plague-ridden, rat-loving marmots.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:11 AM on December 29, 2020
Those flea-bitten, plague-ridden, rat-loving marmots.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:11 AM on December 29, 2020
I've gone from barely knowing anything about marmots to hating and fearing them in the space of a few comments.
These monsters seem to be capable of any evil.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 5:51 AM on December 29, 2020 [3 favorites]
These monsters seem to be capable of any evil.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 5:51 AM on December 29, 2020 [3 favorites]
to be fair, if people hadn't been hunting marmots for their fur, we probably wouldn't have been in close enough contact to get plague from them twice- all we had to do was leave them alone!
posted by BungaDunga at 7:20 AM on December 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by BungaDunga at 7:20 AM on December 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
Have you looked at the conditions on the Mongolian Steppe in winter? Without access to modern wonder materials I'd be hunting anything with fur too.
posted by Mitheral at 9:53 PM on January 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Mitheral at 9:53 PM on January 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
How do you access the article? I would love to read it but when i follow the link i can only read the abstract, as i do not have an Oxford Academic account.
posted by 15L06 at 3:28 AM on January 3, 2021
posted by 15L06 at 3:28 AM on January 3, 2021
The article was available to the public through December 31, but this open-access period has now ended. :(
posted by mbrubeck at 10:10 AM on January 3, 2021
posted by mbrubeck at 10:10 AM on January 3, 2021
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posted by scruss at 11:08 AM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]