The importance of legacy data:
identifying catastrophic events.
Judith Littleton and Caitlin Smith
University of Auckland
The problem:
identifying
catastrophic mortality
• Background
• Radiocarbon dating
• The Justinianic Plague?
• The evidence:
Demography Burial Practices Time
• So is it the plague?
Tylos Burials on Bahrain
Radiocarbon
dates (median
540-545 cal CE)
Bayesian
modelling
The Justinianic Plague (541-549 CE)
https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/23747/what-disruptions-were-brought-about-by-islam-that-the-arabians-saw-so-many- victo
Collective Tombs – normal or unusual?
DS3: Adults in collective tombs
DS3: Nonadults in collective tombs
Demographic profile
Attritional Catastrophic
Areas of greatest disparity:
1. Excess mortality of infants – between 1.7 – 4 x excess.
2. Subadults without the youngest group stable percentage of total number of dead – 18%
3. Adults unevenly distributed – relatively few in the Justinianic tombs (16/227;
7%), more in the outliers (73/396; 18%).
4. Unanswered question – what about female versus male mortality?
Burial Practices
• Modified tombs
Time and population
What population size can produce this number of
dead infants over time? (% of living population) Or the number of females of reproductive age?
Mortality rate N of births
(N dead children c230) Estd. Total population
80% 288 1440
50% 460 2300
30% 766 3830
So?
• This is an example of crisis mortality (not a single short term event but a catastrophe over multiple years)
• Given the bias towards the very young – this pattern of mortality is not consistent with plague
• Further analysis and modelling: which adults, which possible conditions?
• BUT at the moment:
Moments of crisis are frequently multicausal and extend beyond the
boundaries of ‘empires, nation states…..”
Acknowledgements
Shaikh Khalifa Al Khalifa, the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities Dr Salman al-Mahari, Bahrain National Museum and the Qal’at al-Bahrain Site Museum
Soren Fredslund Andersen, Aarhus, Denmark
Pierre Lombard, Counsellor for Archeological Affairs for the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities
Faculty Research and Development Fund at The University of Auckland Seline McNamee, University of Auckland
Biological anthropology colleagues.