A new study in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution uses pollen data to evaluate the second plague pandemic’s mortality at a regional scale across Europe. Results show that the impacts of the Black Death varied substantially from region to region and demonstrate the importance of cross-disciplinary approaches for understanding past – and present – pandemics.
The Black Death, which plagued Europe, West Asia and North Africa from 1347-1352, is the most infamous pandemic in history. Historians have estimated that up to 50% of Europe’s population died during the pandemic and credit the Black Death with transforming religious and political structures, even precipitating major cultural and economic transformations such as the Renaissance. Although ancient DNA research has identified Yersinia pestis as the Black Death’s causative agent and even traced its evolution across millennia, data on the plague’s demographic impacts is still underexplored and little understood.
