Climate Data Suggests Famine Worsened Black Death

News January 6, 2016

(Public Domain)
SHARE:
Black Death famine
(Public Domain)

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS—Volcanic particles discovered in an ice core taken in 2013 from the Colle Gnifetti glacier in the Alps have been chemically matched to the 1875 Askja eruption in Iceland by Matthew Luongo, a junior at Harvard University. This information helped researchers to align the data from the ice core with written records, including information about famine conditions in Europe in the years leading up to the arrival of the Black Death in 1347. “The evidence indicates that the famine was a broader phenomenon, geographically and chronologically,” Alexander More of Harvard’s History Department told The Harvard Gazette. If the famine had lasted decades, the population would have been weak and could explain the Black Death’s high mortality rate—between one-third and one-half of the European population are thought to have died over a period of five years. 

  • Features November/December 2015

    Where There's Smoke...

    Learning to see the archaeology under our feet

    Read Article
    (Vincent Scarano on behalf of Connecticut College)
  • Letter From Wales November/December 2015

    Hillforts of the Iron Age

    Searching for evidence of cultural changes that swept the prehistoric British Isles

    Read Article
    (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales)
  • Artifacts November/December 2015

    Viking Sword

    Read Article
    (Ellen C. Holthe, Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo)
  • Digs & Discoveries November/December 2015

    The Second Americans?

    Read Article
    (ShutterStock)