AncientYersinia pestisgenomes provide no evidence for the origins or spread of the Justinianic Plague

Abstract

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The rise and fall of viticulture in the Late Antique Negev Highlands reconstructed from archaeobotanical and ceramic data

“…In Rome, too, a combination of war and plague caused significant depopulation in the sixth century, although Rome's population decline began much earlier (109,110). Similar demographic effects in Alexandria could have been devastating since Alexandria was clearly involved in trade with Gaza at this time (10,73), and current consensus supports the spread of Justinianic plague's causative agent, Yersinia pestis, from India via the Red Sea (107,111,112). The port city of the empire's breadbasket, from which Justinianic plague purportedly spread throughout the empire, Alexandria's demographic decimation during the first outbreak is described in textual testimonies (113).…”

Past pandemics and climate variability across the Mediterranean

“…Of ancient pandemics, we know most about the Justinianic plague, though uncertainties still complicate potential climate and environmental linkages. Remnants of Y. pestis have been identified in the remains of ~ 45 late antique individuals (Wiechmann and Grupe 2005 ; Harbeck et al 2013 ; Wagner et al 2014 ; Feldman et al 2016 ; Keller et al 2019a , b ), confirming the symptom-based plague diagnosis of this pandemic. But the origins of the outbreak are murky.…”

“…The chronology and geography of the earliest plagues are poorly understood, so too their pathogenic identity. Most diagnoses of prelaboratory plagues are debated, with the exception of those of the Justinianic plague and Black Death, for which we now have confident DNA-based Y. pestis identifications (Bos et al 2011 ; Spyrou et al 2019 ; Keller et al 2019a , b ). That the earliest of the aforementioned plagues were the most demographically or socioeconomically significant ones to afflict the ancient Mediterranean is itself uncertain.…”

“…Most historians, following the 6th-century authority Procopius ( 1914 II.22–23), hold the pandemic enters recorded history in July 541 at Pelusium in the eastern Nile Delta, though other late antique sources suggest the disease appeared first in southern Southwest Asia or East Africa. The phylogeny of ten plague genomes reconstructed from late antique human plague victims (Harbeck et al 2013 ; Wagner et al 2014 ; Feldman et al 2016 ; Keller et al 2019a , b ) indicate that the Justinianic plague Y. pestis lineage originated centuries earlier in Central Asia (possibly in the foothills of the Tian Shan mountains in modern-day Kyrgyzstan). In the emergence-pandemic interval, it has been hypothesized that Y. pestis focalised in East Africa (Green 2015 ; cf.…”

“…Far from all current foci are centuries-old and many are doubtless extinct. The Justinianic plague may have emerged from a non-extant reservoir in East Africa or southern Arabia, where sixth-century writers identify the disease first, or farther afield yet, but small genetic variations in the ten late antique plague genomes presently available teach that recorded Justinianic plague recurrences in the Mediterranean region represent not Y. pestis reintroductions from afar, but re-emergences from one or more historical plague reservoirs in the Mediterranean region (Keller et al 2019a ; Tsiamis et al 2011 ).…”