Research into one of the most fatal pandemics in human history is \u2018especially relevant\u2019 after Covid-19\n<\/p>\n
One of the most fatal pandemics in human history, the Black Death ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1353, and killed up to 50 million people. It has long been accepted that the bubonic plague was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which originated from wild rodent populations in central Asia and reached Europe via the Black Sea region.<\/p>\n
However, historians have not previously understood why the Black Death began precisely when it did, where it started, why it was so deadly and how it spread so quickly.<\/p>\n
A new study from academics at the University of Cambridge and the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO) has shed light on the circumstances that led to the bubonic plague coming to Europe.<\/p>\n
Using a combination of climate data and documentary evidence, including analysing tree rings, the study suggests that a volcanic eruption \u2013 or cluster of eruptions \u2013 around 1345 caused annual temperatures to drop for consecutive years due to the haze from volcanic ash and gases.<\/p>\n
This, in turn, caused crops to fail across the Mediterranean region. To avoid riots or starvation, Italian city states used their connections to trade with grain producers around the Black Sea \u2013 which helped them avoid famine, but introduced the Black Death through foreign ships, the paper published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is something I\u2019ve wanted to understand for a long time,\u201d said Prof Ulf Buntgen from Cambridge\u2019s department of geography. \u201cWhat were the drivers of the onset and transmission of the Black Death, and how unusual were they? Why did it happen at this exact time and place in European history? It\u2019s such an interesting question, but it\u2019s one no one can answer alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prof Buntgen studied tree rings from the Spanish Pyrenees, discovering consecutive \u201cblue rings\u201d, which suggest unusually cold and wet summers in 1345, 1346 and 1347 across much of southern Europe. The team found evidence from the same period that documented unusual cloudiness and dark lunar eclipses, which also suggest volcanic activity.<\/p>\n
Dr Martin Bauch, a historian of medieval climate and epidemiology from GWZO, worked with Prof Buntgen to piece together \u201cthe most complete picture to date\u201d of the \u201cperfect storm\u201d that led the plague to Europe\u2019s ports.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor more than a century, these powerful Italian city states had established long-distance trade routes across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, allowing them to activate a highly efficient system to prevent starvation,\u201d said Dr Bauch. \u201cBut ultimately, these would inadvertently lead to a far bigger catastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n
The researchers added that the findings are \u201cespecially relevant\u201d following the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough the coincidence of factors that contributed to the Black Death seems rare, the probability of zoonotic diseases emerging under climate change and translating into pandemics is likely to increase in a globalised world,\u201d said Prof Buntgen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Research into one of the most fatal pandemics in human history is \u2018especially relevant\u2019 after Covid-19 One of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,61,60,898],"class_list":{"0":"post-177457","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-latest-news-ticker"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}