Did We Underestimate The First Known Outbreak of Bubonic Plague?

Historian Peter Sarris from the University of Cambridge says historians and archeologists need to work together with geneticists and environmental scientists to fully understand the scope and scale of ancient disease outbreaks – including, in this particular example, the arrival of the bubonic plague.

"Some historians remain deeply hostile to regarding external factors such as disease as having a major impact on the development of human society, and 'plague skepticism' has had a lot of attention in recent years," Sarris says.

Sarris points to a number of clues that show the devastating impact of the Justinianic Plague, including a flurry of crisis measure legislation passed between the years 542 and 545 CE as the population dropped, followed by a reduction in law making as the pandemic fully took hold... More here.

Amazing how much you can learn from the past in order to deal with problems in current times. Well, it would be amazing if we actually did learn and use the knowledge for good (covid).