Distant Times So Close: Pandemics and Crises Reloaded

Archaeology is all about how the present came into existence. Thus, it contributes to the social understanding of crises, including present and potential future adversities. Even diseases, such as pandemics in past societies, were and are observed by archaeology. Some examples can be found in this booklet. The scientists of the Kiel Cluster of Excellence ROOTS describe human reactions in past societies that were organized quite differently from ours. This is precisely why it is possible to identify the basic features of human behavior for the management of crises.

From the emergence of agriculture more than 10,000 years ago to the Russian colonization of Siberia a few hundred years ago, a fundamental pattern is becoming apparent: crises, including those caused by disease, can only be managed by increasing diversity. Acceptance of diversity, the introduction of new technologies and socially responsible action have always led to the mastering of crises.

It is also clear that values can only be preserved or updated in crises through active involvement. For example, scientists describe that when people are passive, other social groups can easily bind power to themselves, whereas when people actively participate, more democratic structures can develop even in crisis scenarios.

This is the message that we take with us from the past: Whether as a forager or as a simple farmer in earliest agricultural societies, in ancient Greece or in an early modern society – diversity and social commitment are the components that help us to overcome crises. Learning from the past for the present – that is the task of international archaeology.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction. Pandemics, Crises and Solutions: The Past in the Future
Lutz Käppel, Cheryl Makarewicz, and Johannes Müller

The Roots of Zoonoses
Cheryl Makarewicz

Epidemics, Mobility and Permafrost: Lessons from Siberia
Henny Piezonka

Social Diversity and the Sharing of Knowledge in European Prehistory: Lessons for the Pandemic Present?
Martin Furholt

Why Solidarity Is Needed: Neolithic Connectivity and the Chance of Epidemics
Tim Kerig

Population Agglomeration and the “Bubonic Plague”: The Earliest European Cities around 3800 BCE
Johannes Müller

Upheaval against Social Order. A Solution? Lessons from Neolithic and Iron Age Europe
Johannes Müller

Pandemia and Holism: What Ancient Medicine Had to Say
Chiara Thumiger

The Epidemic as a Challenge: Homer, Iliad
Lutz Käppel

The Epidemic as a Challenge: Sophocles, Oedipus Rex
Lutz Käppel

Oedipus and the Attic Plague
Lutz Käppel

Tracing Past Pandemics through the Analysis of Ancient Pathogen Genomes
Ben Krause-Kyora and Almut Nebel

The Medieval Leprosy Pandemic and Its Impact on the Human Gene Pool
Ben Krause-Kyora and Almut Nebel

Politics of the Pandemic
Vesa Arponen

Consequences: Diversity and Personal Responsibility
Lutz Käppel, Cheryl Makarewicz, and Johannes Müller

Johannes Müller (PhD, University of Freiburg, 1990) is a Professor and Director of the Institute for Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology at Kiel University, Germany. He is the founding director of the Johanna Mestorf Academy, Speaker of the Collaborative Research Centre “Scales of Transformation: Human-environmental Interaction in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies” and of the Excellence Cluster “ROOTS – Social, Environmental, and Cultural Connectivity in Past Societies”.

He conducts research on Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe, including the challenge of interlinking natural, social, life sciences, and the humanities within an anthropological approach of archaeology. Intensive fieldwork was and is carried out in international teams, e.g., on Tripolye mega-sites in Eastern Europa, the Late Neolithic tell site of Okolište in Bosnia-Hercegovina, different Neolithic domestic and burial sites in Northern Germany, and Early Bronze Age sites in Greater Poland. Ethnoarchaeological fieldwork has been conducted, e.g., in India. Within the Kiel Graduate School “Human Development in Landscapes”, now the Young Academy of ROOTS, and the Scandinavian Graduate School “Dialogues of the Past”, Johannes Müller promotes international PhD projects.

Cheryl Makarewicz is professor at the Institute of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology at the Christian-Albrechts Univerity in Kiel.

Studies of Classics in Tübingen and Oxford, PhD 1990, Habilitation 1997, Professor of Classics, especially Greek Literature at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel 1999-, Ordinary Member of the German Archaeological Institute 2000-, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities 2006-2008, Co-Coordinator of the Kiel Graduate School ‘Human Development in Landscapes’ 2007-2016; Speaker of the University’s Research Focus ‘Social, Environmental, Cultural Change’ 2007–.