Publication details
Reply to Alfani: Reconstructing past plague ecology to understand human history
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| web | https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2300760120 |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2300760120 |
| Keywords | human history; reply; ecology |
| Description | Alfani (1) provides important reflections on our recent work, which argues against long-term wildlife-based plague reservoirs in historical Europe (2). Without natural reservoirs in Europe during the past 2,000 y, the plague bacterium (Yersinia pestis) must have repeatedly spilled over from local medium-term reservoirs (3) or was introduced repeatedly from outside Europe by rodents (e.g., rats) and their ectoparasites (e.g., fleas) by infected people or contaminated goods (Fig. 1). While recognized for the Third Pandemic in Europe (4), the hypothesis of several reintroductions of Y. pestis into Europe remains under debate for late-antique and medieval outbreaks. Two hypotheses of plague continuity in Europe have been proposed (5): local persistence in reservoirs and external reimportation. |