Plague genomes show extent, diversity of massive Roman-era pandemic

Interdisciplinary collaboration between Max Planck, Harvard researchers bears fruit

New research on one of history’s most devastating plagues shows that it spread farther than previously believed, reaching post–Roman Britain, and provides new information about the plague bacteria’s evolution during a pandemic that lasted more than 200 years.

The work, conducted by an interdisciplinary team from Harvard University and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany, covered 21 archaeological sites across Europe and the Mediterranean that date to the time of the Justinianic Plague, which first struck in 541 A.D. and returned in multiple waves until 750.