Sangam: A Confluence of Knowledge Streams

Palaeoecological data indicates land-use changes across Europe linked to spatial heterogeneity in mortality during the Black Death pandemic

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dc.creator Izdebski, A
dc.creator Guzowski, P
dc.creator Poniat, R
dc.creator Masci, L
dc.creator Palli, J
dc.creator Vignola, C
dc.creator Bauch, M
dc.creator Cocozza, C
dc.creator Fernandes, R
dc.creator Ljungqvist, FC
dc.creator Newfield, T
dc.creator Seim, A
dc.creator Abel-Schaad, D
dc.creator Alba-Sánchez, F
dc.creator Björkman, L
dc.creator Brauer, A
dc.creator Brown, A
dc.creator Czerwiński, S
dc.creator Ejarque, A
dc.creator Fiłoc, M
dc.creator Florenzano, A
dc.creator Fredh, ED
dc.creator Fyfe, R
dc.creator Jasiunas, N
dc.creator Kołaczek, P
dc.creator Kouli, K
dc.creator Kozáková, R
dc.creator Kupryjanowicz, M
dc.creator Lagerås, P
dc.creator Lamentowicz, M
dc.creator Lindbladh, M
dc.creator López-Sáez, JA
dc.creator Luelmo-Lautenschlaeger, R
dc.creator Marcisz, K
dc.creator Mazier, F
dc.creator Mensing, S
dc.creator Mercuri, AM
dc.creator Milecka, K
dc.creator Miras, Y
dc.creator Noryśkiewicz, AM
dc.creator Novenko, E
dc.creator Obremska, M
dc.creator Panajiotidis, S
dc.creator Papadopoulou, ML
dc.creator Pędziszewska, A
dc.creator Pérez-Díaz, S
dc.creator Piovesan, G
dc.creator Pluskowski, A
dc.creator Pokorny, P
dc.creator Poska, A
dc.creator Reitalu, T
dc.creator Rösch, M
dc.creator Sadori, L
dc.creator Sá Ferreira, C
dc.creator Sebag, D
dc.creator Słowiński, M
dc.creator Stančikaitė, M
dc.creator Stivrins, N
dc.creator Tunno, I
dc.creator Veski, S
dc.creator Wacnik, A
dc.creator Masi, A
dc.date 2022-03-07T11:20:28Z
dc.date 2022-02-10
dc.date.accessioned 2022-05-26T21:09:31Z
dc.date.available 2022-05-26T21:09:31Z
dc.identifier 2397-334X
dc.identifier http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/18898
dc.identifier 10.1038/s41559-021-01652-4
dc.identifier 2397-334X
dc.identifier.uri http://localhost:8080/xmlui/handle/CUHPOERS/228942
dc.description <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>The Black Death (1347–1352 <jats:sc>ce</jats:sc>) is the most renowned pandemic in human history, believed by many to have killed half of Europe’s population. However, despite advances in ancient DNA research that conclusively identified the pandemic’s causative agent (bacterium <jats:italic>Yersinia pestis</jats:italic>), our knowledge of the Black Death remains limited, based primarily on qualitative remarks in medieval written sources available for some areas of Western Europe. Here, we remedy this situation by applying a pioneering new approach, ‘big data palaeoecology’, which, starting from palynological data, evaluates the scale of the Black Death’s mortality on a regional scale across Europe. We collected pollen data on landscape change from 261 radiocarbon-dated coring sites (lakes and wetlands) located across 19 modern-day European countries. We used two independent methods of analysis to evaluate whether the changes we see in the landscape at the time of the Black Death agree with the hypothesis that a large portion of the population, upwards of half, died within a few years in the 21 historical regions we studied. While we can confirm that the Black Death had a devastating impact in some regions, we found that it had negligible or no impact in others. These inter-regional differences in the Black Death’s mortality across Europe demonstrate the significance of cultural, ecological, economic, societal and climatic factors that mediated the dissemination and impact of the disease. The complex interplay of these factors, along with the historical ecology of plague, should be a focus of future research on historical pandemics.</jats:p>
dc.language en
dc.language en
dc.publisher Nature Research
dc.relation ISSN:2397-334X
dc.relation E-ISSN:2397-334X
dc.rights 2022-03-08
dc.rights Not known
dc.title Palaeoecological data indicates land-use changes across Europe linked to spatial heterogeneity in mortality during the Black Death pandemic
dc.type Journal Article


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