Kyle Harper

Well, I mean, the period that I normally work on is sort of from the high Roman Empire, so like the glory days of the Pax Romana in the first or second century, which is usually where I start, through what we call the late antique or early medieval period, so the sixth or seventh century.

And at the beginning of this period, Rome dominates this Mediterranean empire.

It's what you think of when you think of Rome.

ancient Rome.

It's the largest city in the world.

It's the center of this huge network.

And then by the end of this period, the city of Rome has, we don't know, 50 to 100,000 people.

It's a 10th or 20th of its former size.

And I think we now can say pretty clearly that

environmental factors like climate, but also especially diseases play a part in that really big transformation.

And while there's a problem because we don't have the same kind of modern government mortality statistics that we do for like COVID or even for the last century or

century and a half.

We have to piece together from clues, but it's pretty clear that the bubonic plague events, whether you're talking about the Black Death of the 14th century, the Plague of Justinian in the 6th century, these events are capable of

causing death rates temporarily that are just orders of magnitude beyond what we're accustomed to.

And even in these ancient societies, the reason why these were so shocking in a world where the death rate's always pretty high, probably, you know, several percent of the Roman population, three, four percent a year may be dying in a normal year.

And so for them to just be utterly shocked by the death rate already tells you that it's some multiple of what they're accustomed to.

And I mean I –

In the case of the Black Death in the 14th century, it's pretty clear.

It kills 50%, 60% of the population in entire regions.

And we don't necessarily think that it killed 50%, 60% of the whole continent, although that's actually not impossible.