Discovery and Dilemma

This article presents the first paleogenetic evidence for Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague, in the immediate area of Constantinople in the sixth century, the epicenter of surviving first-pandemic narratives. Construction of a natural gas pipeline led to the discovery and excavation of a late antique necropolis in the Bosna Çiftliği locality (near modern Silivri, ancient Selymbria) of Fatih Mahallesi, some fifty miles west of Istanbul within meters of the Anastasian Long Wall. Y. pestis was recovered from the dental remains of a single individual from that site. While a genome has not been drafted and the place of this Y. pestis in plague’s family tree remains uncertain, the detection is robust, as is the sixth-century dating. What follows reports the finding and examines what this Y. pestis detection could mean for our histories of the Justinianic Plague and the First Plague Pandemic. An attempt is also made to bring readers behind the scenes and to articulate both the difficulties of recovering pathogen remnants from long-dead people and the untold burdens that can accompany paleogenetics lab work. We emphasize that the discovery presents a dilemma as there is no one way to interpret the find and that we must be more conscious of both the destructive analysis and neglected toll paleogenetics lab work can entail

Dilemma · Excavation · Harm · Suspect · Yersinia pestis · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Paleopathology and ancient diseases · Yersinia bacterium, plague, ectoparasites research