What the archaeological record reveals about epidemics throughout history – and the human response to them
Monday, June 15, 2020 - 08:30
in Paleontology & Archaeology
The previous pandemics to which people often compare COVID-19—the influenza pandemic of 1918, the Black Death bubonic plague (1342-1353), the Justinian plague (541-542) – don't seem that long ago to archaeologists. We're used to thinking about people who lived many centuries or even millennia ago. Evidence found directly on skeletons shows that infectious diseases have been with us since our beginnings as a species.