Scientists have discovered that a strain of Y. pestis, the same pathogen responsible for the Black Death in Europe in the fourteenth century, is also responsible for the Justinianic Plague of the 540s.

The Justinianic plague effectively ended Emperor Justinians hopes of reconquering the western Roman Empire.

What is of particular interest to historians here is that the Justinianic strain of Y. pestis seems to have some significant genetic traits which would contribute to its virulence. This is in marked contrast to later plague outbreaks such as the Black Death which have little differentiation from modern strains,¹ leading historians to look for other social and environmental explanations for the death toll. Since this is apparently not the case with the Justinianic variety, it challenges some research which assumed that the spread of the Justinianic plague mirrored that of the Black Death.

¹ S. Haensch, B. Bramanti, R. Bianucci, M. Signoli, M. Rajerison, M. Schultz, S. Kacki, et al. “Distinct Clones of Yersinia Pestis Caused the Black Death.” Public Library of Science Pathogens 6, no. 10 (2010).

The new Europeana 1914-1918 collection has launched online, and it is an absolute monster.

It includes over 400,000 digitized items from a host of different collections and archives -- including 10,000 items from the British Library, 90,000 items submitted by members of the public for a "personal stories" project, and over 600 hours of archival film footage from the European Film Gateway. The national libraries of eight countries have contributed substantially to the project, and even more will be added over time.

It's, uh, pretty good.

My front page is an archaeology news feed, and this has actually been one of the better weeks. The new Sappho poems are going around the Real News, but as this sub has the all-knowing /u/rosemary85 that was posted last week. But this week also had the largest Neolithic grain storage found at Catalhoyuk, a lovely, and extremely early, harpoon point in Timor, and the publication of the Scottish Iron Age site at Broxmouth where they identified steel manufacture (that I can't access).

Much more tragic, however, is that the damage to Syrian antiquities is somehow worse than we thought.

It looks like a new Old Babylonian literary tablet of Atra-Hasis has come out of the woodwork. There's a story here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10574119/Noahs-Ark-the-facts-behind-the-Flood.html And an excellent series of posts about it on /r/academicbiblical by our very own /u/koine_lingua analyzing what dribs and drabs of useful information can be extracted from the information in the telegraph articles. Essentially, if Finkel's reading of the tablet is correct it would seem that it describes a round ark built somewhat like a ginormous coracle and in which even wild animals enter. If this is true, it's certainly an interesting addition to our collection of flood myths, an interesting possible variant Atra-hasis texts(and "variant texts" tend not to get the respect they deserve) and information on Mesopotamian boat-building.