'Wonderful' is an odd word to use when discussing the deaths of literally millions of people. But I use that word because some unintended consequences of tragedy can be truly be full of wonder and amazement. Imagine a horrific disease, so bad it becomes named "The Black Death", causing an increase in life and health! As strange as it sounds, these two seemingly polar opposites can be true.
Comedy, they say, is tragedy plus time. Perhaps given enough time, tragedy becomes triumph.
This blog post will, like the subject disease, will evolve over time. This is new territory for me, so some of my thoughts will be (like the blog title) rambling and incoherent. Over time, given more research, I hope to return to this post again and again, like the recurrence of the plague, to refine it and correct errors and omissions.
Let's begin with a timeline of this particular disease.
- 7000 BC - Neolithic Period begins.
- 4000 BC - The first known (at this time) emergence of Y.Pestis, but in a much less virulent form. Perhaps diverged from other yersinia pathogens.
- 3500 BC - Domestication of horses in western Eurasia.
- 3000 BC - Record of Y.Pestis DNA in Eurasia. Perhaps acquired the ability to infect fleas at this time.
- 3000 BC - The Neolithic Decline is a period where neolithic populations mysteriously declined, signalling the end of the Neolithic Period.
- 2500 BC - Evidence of widespread use of wheeled vehicles;earliest in Hungary.
- 2300 BC - Bronze Age begins.
- 2000 BC - The virulence of Y.Pestis increases. Able to spread between mammals via flea bites.
- 1800 BC - DNA of Y.Pestis found in Samara region of Russia; north of Caspian Sea.
- 800 BC - DNA of Y.Pestis found in Armenia; west of Caspian Sea.
- 700 BC - Iron Age begins.
Prior to the Neolithic Decline, many 'mega-settlements' had formed in Europe and elsewhere. As the plague decimated the Eurasian steppes, people fled from these areas. They unwittingly brought Y.Pestis with them. The stone age peoples in such large concentrations were easy prey for Y.Pestis, and those who survived the journey to bring it there were likely resistant or immune to it. So this migration seemed to be one not of integration but of replacement.
And we come to the first of the strangely beneficial effects of the plague. The horse was first domesticated in the western steppes of Eurasia, generally accepted as in the Ural Mountains, north of the Caspian Sea. With the spread of wheeled technology, travel over distance becomes much easier. When the plague drives people out of the Eurasian steppes into western Europe and beyond, they brought their horses with them. They find and adopt the wheeled technology in those areas.
Suddenly, horse riding cultures spread across Europe and are displacing the peoples living there. Wheeled vehicles become commonplace. Travel becomes easier. Simple herding and farming techniques advance into agriculture, trade, and commerce.
Language, as well, was directly affected by the plague and its tendency to enforce migration from the Eurasian steppes. Many languages today can be traced to 'Indo-European' sources. In fact, 'Proto-Indo-European', or PIE, is the largest spoken language group in the world today. PIE is thought to have been a single spoken language from 4500 BC to 2500 BC, and it originated in the Caspian steppe of western Eurasia. Some of the descendant languages include: Spanish, English, Portuguese, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Russian, Punjabi, German, Persian, French, and Italian, just to name a few. Branches from the PIE include: Hellenic, Indo-Iranian, Italic, Celtic, Germanic, and Balto-Slavic.
"And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there."This is just conjecture, but the breakup of PIE into branches may have been a reaction to the plague. When foreigners came to your land, any means to differentiate them from your tribe became important. Simple shibboleths became markers of outsiders, and outsiders might have the plague. Groups isolated themselves from foreigners to protect themselves and their communities. Isolation will intensify language differences. Those differences become pronounced and identifiable. It becomes easier to identify outsiders and possible carriers. Language becomes a defensive tool against the plague and certain death.
Genesis 11:1-2
"And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do."
Genesis 11:6
One last thing to note before moving on. Many sources postulate that the more well known versions of the plague, specifically the Justinian Plague and the Black Death, originated in China. It is clear to me that the actual origin of the Y.Pestis virus in the commonly known form was from the Eurasian steppes. While later versions of Y.Pestis may have returned to Europe from China, it is only because China first received the plague from western Eurasia.
- 200 BC - Roman Climate Optimum; until 150 AD.
- 165 AD - Antonine Plague.
- 180 AD - Grave in China found to contain Y.Pestis strain genetically linked to later plagues.
- 249 AD - Plague of Cyprian.
- 312 AD - Conversion of Constantine.
- 450 AD - Late Antique Little Ice Age; until 700 AD.
- 541 AD - Justinian Plague. Recurrence of this plague continues for about 200 years.
Yellow Fever originated in Africa and came to the Americas during the colonization, mostly from the southern slave trade. However, many of the slaves from Africa had a natural immunity to it due to the prevalence of it in their home countries. Many had it as children and had developed natural antibodies as a result. So when Yellow Fever spread to the white settlers, it decimated them and left the black slaves relatively unscathed. It was postulated at the time that black people were genetically unable to get Yellow Fever, so white patients were often exclusively cared for by black caregivers. They observed black men and women acting as physicians and nurses, rather than simple bearers of burdens. In the north, this fueled sympathy for their black caregivers and led to widespread sympathy for wider abolition movements. In the south, their worth as cheap labor obviously overshadowed their worth as men and women.
Sickle cell disease coincidentally protects the sufferer from malaria. One unintended result of slavery in the Americas meant that non-black slaves would contract and often die of malaria at higher rates than black slaves. This meant a black slave would stay healthy longer in the hot, humid climate of the south in America, of the Caribbean, and of South America. They could work longer and live longer than non-white slaves (i.e. Irish or Natives). The northern climates of America had no serious malaria concerns, so black slaves were not valued as much as they were in the southern states.
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/11/26/1903797116
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source:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2018.11.005
https://phys.org/news/2018-12-ancient-strain-plague-decline-neolithic.html
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181206120035.htm
https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-Europe/The-Neolithic-Period
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/health/01plague.html
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/25/12363
https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/plague-pandemic-0012091
https://www.livescience.com/29498-plague-helped-destroy-roman-empire.html
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-climate-change-and-disease-helped-fall-rome-180967591/