Conflicts and the spread of plagues in pre-industrial Europe
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22235398 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David Kaniewski (0000-0001-6569-3184, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), Nick Marriner (0000-0002-7916-6059, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2020-12-10 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2662-9992 • E-ISSN: 2662-9992 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1057/s41599-020-00661-1 |
| OpenAlex | W3112486019 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 85 |
One of the most devastating environmental consequences of war is the disruption of peacetime human–microbe relationships, leading to outbreaks of infectious diseases. Indirectly, conflicts also have severe health consequences due to population displacements, with a heightened risk of disease transmission. While previous research suggests that conflicts may have accentuated historical epidemics, this relationship has never been quantified. Here, we use annually resolved data to probe the link between climate, human behavior (i.e. conflicts), and the spread of plague epidemics in pre-industrial Europe (AD 1347–1840). We find that AD 1450–1670 was a particularly violent period of Europe’s history, characterized by a mean twofold increase in conflicts. This period was concurrent with steep upsurges in plague outbreaks. Cooler climate conditions during the Little Ice Age further weakened afflicted groups, making European populations less resistant to pathogens, through malnutrition and deteriorating living/sanitary conditions. Our analysis demonstrates that warfare provided a backdrop for significant microbial opportunity in pre-industrial Europe
Bioarchaeology · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Environmental health · Epidemic disease · Geography · Malnutrition · Outbreak · Peacetime · Population · Health and Conflict Studies · Medicine · Yersinia bacterium, plague, ectoparasites research · Zoonotic diseases and public health · Virology
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Yersinia pestis and the Plague of Justinian 541–543 AD
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The Evolution of Climate Over the Last Millennium
Armed conflict as a public health problem
Health-care needs of people affected by conflict
A draft genome of Yersinia pestis from victims of the Black Death
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Early Divergent Strains of Yersinia pestis in Eurasia 5,000 Years Ago
The effect of travel restrictions on the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak
The Thirty Years' War
The Dutch Republic
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War Epidemics
The Black Death and the Transformation of the West
Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 1354-1804
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The Dutch Republic
European summer temperatures since Roman times
Long-term dynamic modeling of global population and built-up area in a spatially explicit way
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Rats cannot have been intermediate hosts for Yersinia pestis during medieval plague epidemics in Northern Europe
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Mobility, mortality, and the middle ages
The Great Bovine Pestilence and its economic and environmental consequences in England and Wales, 1318-501
The geography of smallpox in England before vaccination
Between Famine and Death
The Impact of the Plague in Tudor and Stuart England
Epidemics and Famine in the Little Ice Age
The Black Death and the new London cemeteries of 1348
The Scarcity of Rats and the Black Death
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2025 (5) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |