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Archaeological evidence from funerary contexts is largely ignored in current scholarship on first-pandemic plague, despite the important information that burials and cemeteries can provide about how plague might have affected societies. Skeletal (mainly dental) remains are used in the paleogenomic hunt for victims of plague (Yersinia pestis), but important contextual information is to be gained from plague-positive graves through bioarchaeological study of the complete skeleton and analysis of their funerary contexts, both of which are glaringly absent. We argue that future scholarship on the First Plague Pandemic must bring burial archaeology to the growing body of evidence, and archaeologists themselves must lead or be involved in this research. We present three ways in which burial archaeology can be used effectively to study the impact of first-pandemic plague on individuals and communities: by reconsidering whether we should be looking for an archaeology of “crisis” for this disease event, by evaluating burial archaeology (especially multiple burials) in its proper sociocultural context, and by examining bioarchaeological evidence from entire cemeteries where plague genomes are recovered in any quantity. We conclude by offering an example of how such archaeological evidence can be incorporated into interdisciplinary plague studies.

Historical climatic and environmental pressures and societal responses have varied markedly. Connecting climatic changes to social transformations is not an invention of the modern age. Commentators since antiquity have attributed political and economic changes to extreme weather events. But while explanations for rapid change or catastrophic events were based within the cultural logic of the impacted society, past societies also learned to manage their environments within the limits of their technology and their beliefs and generally understood how to manage their resources sustainably. We offer examples of how premodern societies dealt with or responded to long- and short-term environmental and climatic challenges, including their ability or their failure to foresee and mitigate them. We also look at questions of how societal responses included measures contributing to both resilience and sustainability. Finally, we draw out some generalizable lessons about past responses and behaviors and the ways in which these have contributed, positively and negatively, to the development of more recent and contemporary understanding of and policies toward the impacts of climate change.

Avec l’efflorescence des approches paléoscientifiques du passé, les historiens ont été confrontés à une multitude de nouveaux indices sur des phénomènes tant humains que naturels, des maladies aux migrations en passant par les transformations du paysage et le climat. Ces données inédites exigent une réécriture des récits portant sur les périodes lointaines, remettant en cause à la fois les fondements de l’autorité des sources historiques traditionnelles et la légitimité des personnes habilitées à narrer le passé aux sociétés contemporaines. Les travaux d’histoire appuyés sur les sciences humaines doivent embrasser ces nouveaux types d’indices ; cependant, pour y parvenir, il est nécessaire pour les chercheurs de s’engager dans cette voie de manière critique, comme ils le font pour les sources textuelles et matérielles. Cet article souhaite mettre en lumière les questions méthodologiques les plus essentielles, qui vont des échelles spatio-temporelles et de l’hétérogénéité des nouvelles preuves au rôle à attribuer aux méthodes quantitatives et à la place des données scientifiques dans la construction narrative. Il examine les domaines d’étude où les paléosciences se sont « immiscées » dans des champs et des sujets auparavant réservés aux historiens, notamment l’histoire socio-économique, climatique et environnementale. Les auteurs soutiennent qu’il est urgent pour ces spécialistes d’explorer activement ces pistes novatrices, s’ils entendent contribuer à l’évolution de notre compréhension des défis de l’Anthropocène. With the efflorescence of palaeoscientific approaches to the past, historians have been confronted with a wealth of new evidence on both human and natural phenomena, from human disease and migration through to landscape change and climate. These new data require a rewriting of our narratives of the past, questioning what constitutes an authoritative historical source and who is entitled to recount history to contemporary societies. Humanities-based historical inquiry must embrace this new evidence, but to do so historians need to engage with it in a critical manner, just as they engage critically with textual and material sources. This article highlights the most vital methodological issues, ranging from the spatiotemporal scales and heterogeneity of the new evidence to the new roles attributed to quantitative methods and the place of scientific data in narrative construction. It considers areas of study where the palaeosciences have “intruded” into fields and subjects previously reserved for historians, especially socioeconomic, climate, and environmental history. The authors argue that active engagement with new approaches is urgently needed if historians want to contribute to our evolving understanding of the challenges of the Anthropocene. Les données paléo-environnementales du point de vue de l'historien Un défi épistémologique: relier phénomènes climatiques et indicateurs chiffrés Les études de type enquête: mettre en relation des jeux de données disparates Misère et richesse de la quantification et de l'inférence statistique Réinterpréter les sources textuelles à la lumière des données scientifiques Élaborer des récits historiques dans des environnements interdisciplinaires

The perceived effects of the Justinianic Plague are hotly debated. While some scholars believe it killed as much as half the population of the Mediterranean world and contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire, others argue that it was inconsequential demographically and was not a significant factor in any large-scale historical processes. The increasing use of paleogenetics in the discussion has raised questions about the limits of history as a discipline. This article outlines two broad approaches to the Justinianic Plague, highlights some of the stakes involved, and offers a way forward.

Publicación no académica de la Sociedad Española de Bizantinística. Nº 35, mayo de 2020. Non-academic journal of the Spanish Society of Byzantine Studies. Issue 35, May 2020.