Plague in Spanish Late Antiquity

Kulikowski, Michael

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511812934.011

Cited by 22 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…A contemporary chronicler records that bubonic infection devastated Spain during the first phase of the Justinianic Plague (541–544), and a recently published interpretation of a contemporary record argues that it reached Valencia presumably before 546 (53). Further textual references, including an epitaph dating to 609, document later Iberian outbreaks (56) (Fig. 1).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ancient Yersinia pestis genomes from across Western Europe reveal early diversification during the First Pandemic (541–750)

Keller

Spyrou

Scheib

et al. 2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

122

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The first historically documented pandemic caused by Yersinia pestis began as the Justinianic Plague in 541 within the Roman Empire and continued as the so-called First Pandemic until 750. Although paleogenomic studies have previously identified the causative agent as Y. pestis, little is known about the bacterium’s spread, diversity, and genetic history over the course of the pandemic. To elucidate the microevolution of the bacterium during this time period, we screened human remains from 21 sites in Austria, Britain, Germany, France, and Spain for Y. pestis DNA and reconstructed eight genomes. We present a methodological approach assessing single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in ancient bacterial genomes, facilitating qualitative analyses of low coverage genomes from a metagenomic background. Phylogenetic analysis on the eight reconstructed genomes reveals the existence of previously undocumented Y. pestis diversity during the sixth to eighth centuries, and provides evidence for the presence of multiple distinct Y. pestis strains in Europe. We offer genetic evidence for the presence of the Justinianic Plague in the British Isles, previously only hypothesized from ambiguous documentary accounts, as well as the parallel occurrence of multiple derived strains in central and southern France, Spain, and southern Germany. Four of the reported strains form a polytomy similar to others seen across the Y. pestis phylogeny, associated with the Second and Third Pandemics. We identified a deletion of a 45-kb genomic region in the most recent First Pandemic strains affecting two virulence factors, intriguingly overlapping with a deletion found in 17th- to 18th-century genomes of the Second Pandemic.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1). In the Visigothic levels of the Plaça de l’Almoina in Valencia, several collective burials in an intramural cemetery were interpreted as possible plague burials (56, 57).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ancient Yersinia pestis genomes from across Western Europe reveal early diversification during the First Pandemic (541–750)

Keller

Spyrou

Scheib

et al. 2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

122

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“…Second, a series of droughts, bad harvests and famines are recorded during the last decades of the century, together with outbreaks of plague. 78 The combination of famine and plague created a deep demographic crisis in the kingdom. Three years' worth of taxes were remitted by the kings so that peasants could survive, and the palace at Toledo was abandoned.…”

Section: The Seventh-century Crisis In the Visigothic Mediterranean Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nunc autem a Gothis subversa: the province of Alicante and the Spanish Mediterranean towns between the Byzantine and Visigothic periods

Jiménez

Narganes

2015

Early Medieval Europe

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The transition between the sixth and the seventh centuries in the towns of Iberia has been a matter of much discussion, leading to the development of the 'urban renewal' model, by which the Visigothic process of state formation generated a new urban munificence. A similar process can be seen in the towns of the Byzantine area, and our aim is to discuss the evolution of the urban settlements of the modern province of Alicante, reassessing the available evidence and comparing it with the models proposed for the Byzantine and Visigothic areas.It is now becoming generally known, as shown by the most recent archaeological discoveries, that during the last decades of the sixth century, towns in the Iberian Peninsula went through a period of urban renewal, linked to the process of state formation that characterized most of the Visigothic kingdom. A similar transformation can be identified in the towns of the southern coast at the same time, inside the area controlled by the Byzantine empire. These two political and economic systems (the Visigothic kingdom and the Byzantine empire) can be archaeologically identified in terms of urbanism, but their differences need further discussion 1 , and our purpose here is to explain the way these * This paper was originally written while the authors were at the universities of Oxford and Alicante, respectively. The authors thank Jordi López Lillo for his comments in situ on the nature of the sites in Alicante. We thank Sonia Gutiérrez, Victoria Amorós and Carlos Tejerizo for their useful comments on the paper, and Ulises Rodríguez, Jacob Love and George Artley, who have further revised the text. Despite of all this help, all errors remain our own. 1 The main general reference for the archaeology of towns in late antiquity, M. Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain and its Cities (London, 2004), does not go into any detail of the archaeology of the sixth and seventh centuries. Similarly, other works that deal with this period, such as J. Arce, Esperando a los árabes. Los visigodos en Hispania (507-711) (Madrid, 2011), do not use the archaeological material with accuracy. Early Medieval Europe 2015 23 (3) 263-289

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Tracking mass death during the fall of Rome's empire (II): a first inventory

McCormick¹

2016

J. Roman archaeol.

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Plague in Spanish Late Antiquity

Cited by 22 publications

References 0 publications

Ancient Yersinia pestis genomes from across Western Europe reveal early diversification during the First Pandemic (541–750)

Ancient Yersinia pestis genomes from across Western Europe reveal early diversification during the First Pandemic (541–750)

Nunc autem a Gothis subversa: the province of Alicante and the Spanish Mediterranean towns between the Byzantine and Visigothic periods

Tracking mass death during the fall of Rome's empire (II): a first inventory

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