The complex history of the plague after the Black Death

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Estonian Research Council

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Multiple burial of plague victims from Domat/Ems, Sogn Pieder (Switzerland) associated with the Plague of the Thirty Years’ War (c.1629–1631). Analyses of individual 24 yielded a full Yersinia pestis genome. Image credit: Archaeological Service of the Canton of Grisons.

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Credit: Image credit: Archaeological Service of the Canton of Grisons.

The Black Death is often remembered as a single catastrophic event that swept across Europe between 1347 and 1353, killing millions. Yet the disease did not disappear after that first devastating outbreak. For over four centuries, plague continued to return in recurring waves, reshaping communities, economies, and societies across Europe and beyond. A new study led by researchers at the University of Tartu sheds fresh light on this long and complex history by analysing the DNA of the plague bacterium preserved in archaeological human remains.

The researchers reconstructed 26 genomes of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for plague, from 11 archaeological sites in Estonia, Russia, England, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The samples span a period from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, covering much of the so-called Second Plague Pandemic.

The results reveal the complex history of plague with unprecedented resolution. Rather than persisting in a single location after the Black Death, plague repeatedly resurfaced in different parts of Europe over several centuries, seeding multiple new reservoirs. The researchers found evidence that plague was introduced multiple times into Estonia throughout much of the Second Plague Pandemic, showing that close connections with other parts of Europe also facilitated the spread of disease.

One of the study's most notable findings was evidence of a major expansion of plague lineages around 1450–1500. During this period, the bacterium diversified into three major branches that may have established new reservoirs in wild rodent populations.

The researchers speculate that climatic changes could have played a role. One possible factor is the Great Renaissance Drought. Modern studies have shown that climate strongly influences plague outbreaks among wild rodents, which serve as natural reservoirs of the disease.

“We found evidence for repeated introductions of plague into Estonia starting already in the late 14th century and identified several previously unknown genetic lineages, both in urban and rural settings” said senior author Prof. Kristiina Tambets.

 

More precise timeframe

One of the most innovative aspects of the study was a new method for assigning historical plague outbreaks to recovered plague genomes. The importance of this approach can be illustrated by comparing it with the COVID-19 pandemic. During the coronavirus crisis, scientists were able to track the spread of different variants because genome sequences came with precise collection dates. Historical pandemics are different: ancient remains are often dated only within broad radiocarbon intervals that can span more than a century.

“With COVID-19, scientists could reconstruct the spread of individual strains extremely well because the genomes came with precise timestamps. For historical pandemics, those timestamps are often missing or may cover more than 100 years, which limits our ability to interpret the genetic data,” the main author, Dr Marcel Keller, explained.

To overcome this challenge, the research team developed a method that improves the precision and accuracy of those intervals. By analysing the position of plague genomes on the bacterium's evolutionary tree, they were able to narrow down the likely dates of many samples and place them into a much clearer historical context.

The researchers then used these improved dates to reassess 64 previously published and 11 newly sequenced plague genomes. The result is the first systematic attempt to link nearly all currently available plague genomes from the fourteenth to eighteenth centuries with historically documented outbreaks.

“We were able to improve dating intervals for many samples, which allowed us to connect them to specific plague waves and outbreaks that were recorded in the respective towns or regions by chroniclers,” said historian and corresponding author Prof. Philip Slavin.

War helped spread disease

The study also highlights how strongly human activity shaped the course of plague epidemics. Newly analysed genomes provide additional evidence for outbreaks associated with the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) and the Great Northern War (c. 1700–1721). According to the researchers, plague frequently spread along the same routes used by armies, refugees and traders.

“We see how Yersinia pestis splits into new branches during periods of conflict and spreads along the routes travelled by troops and displaced populations,” said senior author Dr Christiana L. Scheib.

The findings offer new insights into plague outbreaks during the Great Northern War. In Tallinn, for example, plague caused casualties among Swedish and Russian troops as well as civilians during the 1710 siege.

More broadly, the research shows that plague was not a single historical disaster but a recurring threat that devastated cities and regions generation after generation.

Why it matters today

Although plague is no longer a major public health threat in Europe, the disease has not disappeared. Yersinia pestis still survives in natural rodent reservoirs in several parts of the world.

The researchers argue that understanding how plague established itself after the Black Death, persisted for centuries, and eventually disappeared from Europe can help scientists better understand the long-term dynamics of infectious diseases.

By linking ancient plague genomes to historical outbreaks and potential reservoir populations, the study provides new insights into how pandemics emerge, spread and persist over time. Such knowledge may also contribute to modern disease surveillance and public health efforts to monitor contemporary plague foci.

Collaboration across countries and disciplines

The study was made possible through extensive international collaboration. Samples and expertise came from partners across Europe, including researchers at the University of Cambridge and collaborators in the Netherlands and Switzerland. By combining ancient DNA research, archaeology, history, and radiocarbon dating, the team has produced the most comprehensive genetic picture of the Second Plague Pandemic to date and provided new insights into how one of history's deadliest diseases shaped Europe for centuries.

Read more: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2534899123

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Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2534899123 

Was Nîmes depopulated by the Plague of Cyprian?

 

Analyses of the carbonate deposits in the aqueduct featuring the famous Pont du Gard shed light on the water supply of the ancient city of Nîmes

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Johannes Gutenberg Universitaet Mainz

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The Pont du Gard supplied ancient Nîmes with water.
 

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Credit: photo/©: Meltem Sürmelihindi

Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have gleaned new insights into ancient water management in the French region around Nîmes by analyzing carbonate deposits within the Roman aqueduct that features the famous Pont du Gard bridge. Among other findings, the aqueduct – built around 50 AD – was expanded to include an additional water source after eleven years of operation; this event coincided with a historically documented dry spell. A century after the aqueduct's construction, the water supply to the city was deliberately throttled; it is likely that some of the water was diverted to agricultural land in the surrounding area instead. Another 120 years later, the urban water supply ceased completely, coinciding with an empire-wide economic crisis and the Plague of Cyprian (250-270 AD). Nîmes was presumably depopulated by the plague, rendering the water supply to the city unnecessary. "The carbonate deposits document human interventions spanning roughly 300 years during the Pax Romana and also offer insights into social unrest," summarized Dr. Gül Sürmelihindi of JGU’s Institute of Geosciences. The team led by Professor Cees Passchier published the results of the carbonate analysis in the journal Geoarchaeology on September 15.

After eleven years, the aqueduct was expanded to include a second water source

For their study, Sürmelihindi and her colleague Passchier extracted samples of carbonate rock – formed over time by the flowing water – from ten locations along the 50-kilometer-long aqueduct and analyzed the rock layers using isotope analysis. Variations in water inflow and temperature had caused distinct patterns to form within the layers, comparable to tree rings. "At the base of the samples, there is a carbonate layer about two centimeters thick, covered by a thin layer of clay," said Passchier. According to him, the composition of this layer – and especially the clay layer, both of which were deposited during the aqueduct's first eleven years of operation – points to a drought in the western Mediterranean region, an event also documented by the Roman historian Tacitus. "The nature of the carbonate changes in the subsequent layers: after eleven years, a different type of water was introduced. An additional source was tapped to ensure the aqueduct had a sufficient water supply," said Passchier. This correlates with structural modifications to the aqueduct – such as the raising, reinforcing, and partial buttressing of the sidewalls to accommodate the higher water level – that are still visible today on the Pont du Gard bridge.

Powerful figures diverted water

Around 150 AD, the deposited carbonate layers became significantly thinner: the water level in the aqueduct dropped. "About half of the water supplying the city was diverted to irrigate fields – given the large volume, this appears to have been an authorized withdrawal," said Sürmelihindi. Such an arrangement would likely have been possible only for highly influential individuals; furthermore, the city does not seem to have had a critical need for the water. For the next hundred years or so, the aqueduct functioned flawlessly – albeit with a reduced volume of water reaching the city.

Water supply to the city ceases around 270 AD: The Plague of Cyprian?

From the mid-third century onwards, the color and composition of the carbonate changed: it became more porous and incorporated clay and sand – signs that the aqueduct was no longer being well maintained. "Great economic and political turmoil prevailed across many parts of the Roman Empire. The carbonate deposits reveal that the city's condition was deteriorating," said Sürmelihindi. Around 270 AD, carbonate deposition came to an abrupt halt in samples taken near the city: the water supply to Nîmes was completely cut off. Instead, owners of vast estates were diverting the water upstream, as evidenced by the continuous deposition of carbonate in the rural sections of the aqueduct.

"The results suggest that something happened to the population of Nîmes," said Sürmelihindi. "It is possible that the Plague of Cyprian – which is primarily documented in North Africa and even in Rome, where it claimed many lives – also posed a problem in southern France, as suggested by our study’s co-author, Professor Andrew Wilson of the University of Oxford. Not much is known about this plague in Western Europe." Did this epidemic depopulate Nîmes, causing survivors to move from the city to the countryside? Archaeological findings support the hypothesis derived from the carbonate analyses: many cities in southern France contracted at this time, some by barbarian invasions, but some by unexplained reasons. The city of Cahors – located about 300 kilometers west of Nîmes – was also in crisis, a fact revealed by Passchier and Sürmelihindi through their study of local carbonate deposits; this further reinforces the theory regarding the Plague of Cyprian.

In rural areas, however, water from the aqueduct continued to be used for another 140 years, well into the 5th century. People drilled holes into the sidewalls to extract water for agriculture – a practice evidenced by massive limescale deposits on the aqueduct's exterior caused by the resulting leaks. "The city could easily have repaired the aqueduct during those 140 years," says Passchier. "Apparently, however, the decline in population density and urban wealth was permanent."

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Journal

Geoarchaeology

DOI

10.1002/gea.70076 

Little Foot study points to major shift in how human ancestors moved

A major change in how our ancestors moved through their environment took place between about three million and 1.8 million years ago

Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of the Witwatersrand

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In the foreground (right) is a depiction of an early Homo human ancestor characterized by relatively greater bone strength of the femur in the thigh compared to the humerus in the arm. In the background (left) is a depiction of an older human ancestor, Australopithecus, characterized by more equivalent strength in the bones of the arm and thigh. The authors’ findings document a shift in relative bone strength between these two ancestors, signaling a fundamental change in how they used their upper limb during daily interactions with the surrounding environment. In early Homo ancestors, it appears that the upper limb was no longer appreciably used in weight-bearing activities, such as arboreal movements, that appear to have characterized Australopithecus ancestors.

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Credit: Kris J Carlson

New research on the limb bones of the famous Little Foot skeleton from the Wits Sterkfontein Caves suggests that a major change in how our ancestors moved through their environment took place between about three million and 1.8 million years ago.

The study, published in Science Advances, finds that Australopithecus, the group of hominins that includes Little Foot, combined regular tree-climbing with walking on two legs on the ground. However, by about 1.8 million years ago, early members of the genus Homo appear to have shifted much more strongly towards a life on the ground.

The findings are based on comparisons of the relative strength of arm and leg bones in fossil human ancestors, modern humans and living apes.

Professor Kristian Carlson of the University of Southern California, who is affiliated with the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits University, says the results point to a fundamental difference between Australopithecus and later Homo.

“Early human ancestors such as Australopithecus appear to have used trees as much as modern chimpanzees and gorillas do today, but when they were on the ground they were walking on two legs,” Carlson says.

“That combination is important because there is no living species that provides a good behavioural comparison for them.”

The researchers added new data from the approximately 3.67-million-year-old StW 573 skeleton, known as Little Foot, from the Wits Sterkfontein Caves in South Africa, and fossils from Dmanisi in Georgia dating to about 1.8 million years ago.

They compared the strength of bones in the arms and thighs, as well as strength patterns within the lower limbs.

Little Foot and other Australopithecus fossils show relatively strong arms compared with their thighs, a pattern closer to African apes than to modern humans. This suggests their arms were still regularly exposed to the loads associated with climbing and moving in trees.

But Little Foot’s lower limb tells a different story. The relationship between the strength of the thigh and lower-leg bones is closer to the modern human pattern.

“This is one of the most surprising results,” Carlson says. “The Australopithecus individual has a modern human-like signal within the lower limb, while the relationship between the arm and thigh is much more African ape-like.”

He says the combination highlights how unusual Australopithecus locomotion was.

“These ancestors were not simply moving like chimpanzees, nor were they moving like modern humans. They seem to have combined substantial use of trees with regular bipedal walking on the ground.”

In contrast, the Dmanisi fossils and other early Homo and Homo erectus individuals show limb-strength patterns much closer to those of modern humans. The researchers interpret this as evidence that, by about 1.8 million years ago, the human lineage had become far more committed to walking on two legs on the ground and was using trees much less.

The researchers propose that the difference may represent a “threshold” between the adaptive patterns of Australopithecus and Homo, similar to other major changes used to distinguish stages of human evolution.

What caused the shift remains uncertain. The authors suggest it could be linked to changes in ranging, food gathering and other pressures that favoured stronger lower limbs and greater dependence on life on the ground.

They also note that the change took place during a broad period in which brain size was increasing in the human lineage.

“We are not saying that one change caused the other,” Carlson says. “But the timing is intriguing. We hope the possible relationship between changes in limb use, ranging behaviour and brain size will stimulate further discussion.”

The study includes researchers from Wits University’s Evolutionary Studies Institute and the Sterkfontein Caves research programme, together with international collaborators.

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Journal

Science Advances

 

Henry VIII’s dissolution enforcer stashed Catholic manuscript – lost pages just rediscovered

 

 

Sir John Gage, a key figure in Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, saved a dangerous Catholic book from likely destruction, a new study suggests. The identification of six lost pages of a medieval bestseller – illicitly prized by Catholics in the Reformation – as belonging to Gage, exposes the split loyalties of one of Tudor England’s great survivors.

 

Fans of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy will recall John Gage appearing as a religious conservative and yet dependable enforcer for Henry VIII, as Constable of the Tower and Privy Counsellor. But new research suggests a bold act of subterfuge by Gage, in which he shielded a treasured Catholic text from the very destruction the king ordered him to enforce.

Archival sleuthing by researchers from the Universities of Sussex and Cambridge has reunited six fragile pages in The Keep archive, Brighton (UK) with a manuscript held 3,500 miles away at Yale University in the US: Nicholas Love’s early 15th-century Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ.

Dr Katie Walter from the University of Sussex; and Dr James Wade, from Girton College, Cambridge overcame a cataloguing puzzle which had frustrated scholars for nearly a century, leaving the fragment ‘hiding in plain sight’. Their study is published today in the journal Notes and Queries.

A trail of clues left by various archivists and scholars eventually led Wade and Walter to a digitised manuscript known as ‘Takamiya MS 20’ held by the Beinecke Library at Yale University. Scrolling through it, they found the gap where The Keep pages belonged – just before a controversial passage on the importance of oral confession to a priest – and matched the scribe’s handwriting, and the content of the missing passage to prove the connection. On the final page of the Yale manuscript, among a list of names of likely owners, including those of two religious women, is the signature of John Gage.

Dr Katie Walter says: “The fact two possible owners before Gage were religious women suggests the manuscript might have been in a monastic house before it came into his possession. The dissolution of the monasteries led to the destruction of many books but others were taken and then circulated through informal networks. Considering Gage’s active role in the dissolution, it’s very possible he acquired the book during this chaos.”

Dr James Wade says: “One possibility is that John Gage went to a monastic library and brought it home. Another is that someone else smuggled it out, and it briefly circulated from hand to hand until Gage acquired it. The key thing is – he kept it safe when he was meant to destroy books precisely like this one.”

 

Love’s precious / deadly words

 

First page of The Keep fragment of Nicholas Love’s early 15th-century Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ. It shows the beginning of Chapter 34, on the Raising of Lazarus.

Courtesy of The Trustees of the Firle Estate Settlement and the University of Sussex

Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ went from being an approved, orthodox bestseller in the early 15th century to a ‘risk to life’ book in the English Reformation a century later.

Love completed his English translation and adaptation of an earlier Latin text around 1409, at a moment of intense anxiety about the rise and spread of heretical beliefs. The Lollards, a proto-Protestant religious movement, were boldly arguing people should have access to the Bible in English and challenging the role of the Pope and of priests. In 1401, an act was passed to suppress heresy, condemning seditious heretics, including the Lollards, to punishments that could include death by burning. 

“In the early 15th century, having bible translations in English could get you killed,” Katie Walter says. “Nicholas Love’s translation offered a safe alternative. It was considered orthodox and circulated with the seal of approval of Archbishop Arundel, the outspoken opponent of the Lollards.”

In the Reformation, however, some of Love’s words became toxic. Most problematically, he appended a treatise arguing for the real presence of the blood and body of Jesus in the sacrament. He also included passages about oral confession to a priest as well as other orthodox Catholic sacraments – all of which became hotly debated in Henry VIII’s reign and in the tumultuous years of Reformation and counter-Reformation which followed.

James Wade says: “65 copies of Love’s text survive today. That’s a lot for a 15th-century manuscript but so many could have been destroyed in the Reformation.  It shows how popular it was, but it also shows how a work that became suspicious and dangerous for some could also be valued and preserved by others.”

 

Who was John Gage (1479 – 1556)?

Portrait (unattributed) of Sir John Gage.

Credit

Courtesy of The Trustees of the Firle Estate Settlement

 

When the dissolution of the monasteries began in 1536, Sir John Gage was gaining influence at Henry VIII’s court. He was already vice-chamberlain of the royal household and was on the right side of Henry’s rising star: Thomas Cromwell.

Having already proven himself an effective administrator, Gage was tasked with organising the dissolution in Surrey, Kent, and Sussex. This involved taking stock of everything owned by monastic houses and working out how to dispose of those assets for the Crown.

As part of this role, Gage legitimately acquired items including the Battle Abbey sword, a treasure made for the Abbot in the early 15th century. Gage’s house, Firle Place, was even built with stones removed from the nearby Lewes Priory following its surrender to the Crown in 1537.

“Gage had a very long career in a highly turbulent court,” says James Wade. “He survived when many other very shrewd people did not. And he made a fortune in the process. But he's also this incredibly conflicted man, because he remained a Catholic throughout the Reformation. He’s got all this power and bureaucratic savvy combined with a risky conviction in his faith. Somehow he manages to reconcile these two things, and survive.”

Katie Walter says: “We often associate this period with book burning and destruction, so this manuscript’s story goes a bit against that grain. It reminds us that people were also rescuing, valuing and caring for books.”

William Caxton brought out a print edition of Nicholas Love's Mirror in 1486 and it stayed in print until publication abruptly halted at the start of the Reformation, after which point Catholics played an important role in safeguarding its contents for the future. “By keeping this book on his shelf, John Gage and his family were part of a much bigger secret effort to preserve Catholic literature and knowledge”, Katie Walter says.

James Wade says: “It makes us think about the integrity that underlies subterfuge. There was a lot at stake for John Gage to perform tasks at court, but then secretly preserve the very thing that he's meant to destroy.”

The researchers hope their findings will open up new opportunities to trace John Gage’s perilous steps through the dissolution and Reformation.

 

 

A brief chronology

John’s Gage’s copy of Nicholas Love’s Mirror stays in the Gage family in Sussex until the 20th century. At some point between Gage’s acquisition and the manuscript’s re-binding in the nineteenth century, 6 pages, now known as ‘The Keep fragment’, become detached. In 1929, the family deposits 46 boxes of documents on loan with the Sussex Archaeological Society. One of these boxes contains the fragment but it is omitted from the box’s contents list. In 1982, the box is transferred to the East Sussex Record Office before moving to its current location in The Keep in 2013.

Meanwhile, in 1976, a collector in Tokyo, Japan, Professor Toshiyuki Takamiya, purchases the manuscript at a Christie’s sale of properties belonging to John Gage’s descendant, Viscount Gage of Firle. Then in 2017, it is transferred to the Beinecke Library at Yale University, where it remains.

 

References

 

K. Walter & J. Wade, Nicholas Love’s ‘Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ: A missing fragment from Takamiya MS 20 in the holdings of The Keep’, Notes and Queries (2026). DOI: 10.1093/notesj/gjag103

 

‘Archive of the Gage Family of Firle, Viscounts Gage’, The Keep Catalogue.

 

Nicholas Love, Mirour of the Blessed Lyf of Jesu Christ (Takamiya MS 20). General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

 

Pre-European Indigenous Australian population was much larger than previously thought

 and decimated after arrival of First Fleet

Australia had a much larger Indigenous population before the arrival of Europeans than previously thought, according to new research.

The research also demonstrates much larger population losses resulting from colonisation than previously believed, with an estimated 93 per cent of the pre-European population removed in less than 80 years following the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet.

Professor Corey Bradshaw, Flinders University Global Ecology Professor and a Chief Investigator in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures (CIEHF), is part of a national research group working with Indigenous partners to investigate Indigenous population sizes through time.

Using sophisticated computer modelling they calculated that the Indigenous population was up to 7 times larger than previously estimated.

“Understanding the size of Indigenous populations in Australia before European invasion in 1788 is essential to truth-telling and reconciliation,” says Professor Bradshaw.

The research team arrived at new population estimates through reviewing ethnographic observations, archaeological and genetic reconstructions, and modelling environmental carrying capacity across the continent to estimate the Indigenous population size before colonisation.

Many previous estimates are anchored by one of the earliest attempts at determining pre-colonisation  populations by anthropologist Alfred Radcliffe-Brown in the 1930s, who calculated a population of 250,000 people.

However, he acknowledged these values did not account for the impacts of lethal diseases, and frontier and structural violence. Increasingly, these impacts have been shown to be far more extensive than previously known and suggest that early figures underestimate the number of people across Australia.

Using modelled and genetics-based estimates (supported by, but not relying on, historical or ethnographic accounts), the researchers calculated a median pre-colonial Indigenous population of 2.22 million, or 0.29 people per square kilometre.

This compares with previous historical estimates of only 250,000–1,000,000 people, which the researchers say are underestimates due to the far-reaching impacts of disease, and frontier and structural violence that had affected populations by the time of early Australian censuses.

The new estimate also allows calculation of the number of excess deaths in the post-1788 era. To align with early census records, the model estimates 2.06 million excess deaths (an average of about 28,200 per year) occurred between 1788 and 1861.

These estimates show that by 1861, only about 7% of the estimated pre-colonial population survived.

“These devastating findings highlight the major impacts of invasion experienced by Indigenous Australians, and demonstrate their remarkable survival, resilience and recovery over the past century,” says lead author Associate Professor Alan Williams, a Partner Investigator in CIEHF representing EMM Consulting and who is also an Adjunct Research Fellow at James Cook University.

Although the Indigenous population in Australia has grown since the 1950s, the 2021 census shows it remains at about 37% of the estimated median pre-colonial size.

If current growth trends continue, achieving parity with the 1788 Indigenous population would not be reached until around 2047.

“The findings highlight the scale of demographic catastrophe experienced by Indigenous Australians due to colonisation, with the implications being a heightened understanding of intergenerational trauma and to inform future policy that assists Indigenous people. In addition to recognising this intergenerational trauma and disadvantage, it is also time to recognise intergenerational privilege”, says co-author Distinguished Professor Lynette Russell of the Monash University Indigenous Studies Centre and CIEHF.

The researchers also say the study emphasises the importance of using multiple approaches to reconstruct population histories if historical records are incomplete or biased.

“These research findings challenge us to rethink the scale of what happened after 1788. We are not talking about a marginal consequence of colonisation but a demographic catastrophe at the heart of the Australian story. But the research also tells us something extraordinary. Our survival is one of Australian history’s most remarkable stories,” said Distinguished Professor Larissa Behrendt AO Chair, CIEHF Centre Advisory Committee.

The research – “Large size of the Australian Indigenous population prior to its massive decline following colonial invasion”, by Alan Williams, Raymond Tobler, Billy Griffiths, Sean Ulm, Matthew Nitschke, Michael Bird, Shane Ingrey, Frédérik Saltré, Kirsty Beller, Ian McNiven, Nicholas Pitt, Lynette Russell, Alistair Paterson, Christopher Wilson and Corey Bradshaw – has been published in Nature Human Behaviour. DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02571-9

 

Ice Age carvers used mammoth tusk patterns to create unique art

Intricate designs engraved across the surface of 18,000-year-old female figurines carved from mammoth ivory were inspired by the distinctive growth patterns visible in the tusks, a new study has revealed.

 

Caption

Ice Age craftspeople carefully observed and mimicked the natural lines of mammoth ivory in the art.

Credit

University of York

An analysis of 18 famous ‘Venus’ figurines found at the Mizyn campsite in Northern Ukraine shows that Ice Age craftspeople carefully observed and mimicked the natural lines of the ivory, using them to structure their artistic engravings.

The discovery was made possible using high-resolution microscopic analysis and 3D digital modelling. The artefacts were recorded as part of urgent heritage preservation efforts led by Ukrainian NGO Archaїc.

The team found that the carvers explicitly incorporated Schreger and Owen lines, which are the natural growth rings found in mammoth tusks, into the surface patterns of the figures.

The teams at the University of York, University of Stavanger, and the National Museum of the History of Ukraine, who were behind the discovery, said the findings challenged traditional views on how Stone Age art evolved across Europe.

Dr Aimée Little at the University of York’s Department of Archaeology and Director of the Centre of Artefacts and Materials Analysis at the University of York said: “This discovery offers an extraordinary window into how Palaeolithic peoples perceived and engaged with their material world.

“Identifying visual evidence of how mammoths were integrated into artistic traditions, both through the use of their ivory and the deliberate inscription of its natural patterns, represents a genuine breakthrough in our understanding of prehistoric art and material culture.

Due to the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war, access to the physical artefacts at the National Museum of History of Ukraine in Kyiv was limited, making digital scanning essential to ensure their preservation and study into the future.

The analysis highlights a significant gap of 1,000 to 3,000 years in the creation of human figurines across Europe, coinciding with the Last Glacial Maximum - the coldest peak of the last Ice Age.

Dr Andrew Needham, from the University of York’s Department of Archeology, said: “When figurine-making re-emerged around 18,000 years ago, it began earlier in Eastern Europe than in the West. While later Western European styles also featured abstracted female forms, none reproduced the internal tusk patterns seen at Mizyn.

“This indicates that Ice Age artists in Eastern Europe forged their own independent artistic path rather than simply following trends from Western Europe.”

There are many theories regarding the spiritual or ritualistic purpose of ‘Venus’ figurines of the Stone Age, but this new study demonstrates the crucial elements of its artistry. 

Simon Radchenko, researcher at the Archaeological Museum, University of Stavanger, said: “We are optimistic that our future digital research will shed more light on the emergence and development of artistic expression in Europe, showing an even more complex, and intriguing picture than we have now.”

Oleksandr Naumenko, researcher at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine, added: "Projects like this not only deepen our understanding of the past but also create new opportunities for research. At a time when war continues to threaten Ukraine's cultural heritage, creating high-quality digital records of artefacts is a crucial step in preserving them."

The international project, published in the Nature partner journal Heritage Science, brought together experts from Ukraine, Norway, Germany, and the UK, supported by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action grant.

Dr Dmytro Kiosak, from the Leibniz Centre for Archaeology, said: “Our findings challenge the long-held assumption that ancient art simply evolved in a straight line from basic to complex forms.”