Mass grave in Jordan sheds new light on world's earliest recorded pandemic

"A US-led research team has verified the first Mediterranean mass grave of the world's earliest recorded pandemic, providing stark new details about the plague of Justinian that killed millions of people in the Byzantine empire between the sixth and eighth centuries. The findings, published in February's Journal of Archaeological Science, offer what researchers say is a rare empirical window into the mobility, urban life and vulnerability of citizens affected by the pestilence."

"DNA taken from bodies at a mass burial ground at Jerash in modern-day Jordan show the grave represented a single mortuary event, instead of the normal, gradual growth over time of a traditional cemetery, according to the team that last year identified Yersinia pestis as the microbe that caused the plague. The new research focused on the victims, how they lived, their susceptibility to the disease and why they were in Jerash, a regional trade hub and the epicenter of the pandemic that raged from AD541 to AD750."

A verified mass grave at Jerash in modern-day Jordan provides the first Mediterranean archaeological evidence of the Justinian plague. DNA from teeth recovered at the burial shows the assemblage represents a single mortuary event rather than gradual cemetery accumulation. Yersinia pestis has been identified as the causative microbe. The site reveals victims' mobility patterns, urban living conditions and disease susceptibility in a regional trade hub that was the pandemic epicenter between AD541 and AD750. Biological and archaeological evidence together illustrate pandemics as social events that affected lived human health, not only as outbreaks recorded in text.

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