Monica H Green

@monicamedhist

Medhist=medieval + medical history ( Focusing on Global Health. Open-access: The Black Death: The Medieval Plague Pandemic through the Eyes of Ibn Battuta,

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Monica H Green@monicamedhist· 3d

We have no smallpox aDNA from Africa, so there is no basis yet for distinguishing the Chilean genomes from different Old World sources. But as we take in amazing new findings like this one, we should bracket the known empty spaces in our historical analyses. And in our modern research structures!

A quote from a co-author of the new Chilean genome study:

"For reporters interested in research integrity topics, study co-author Constanza de la Fuente Castro says, “The ancient DNA field has been in the spotlight due to two particular concerns. First, given the destructive nature of the analyses, unique and irreplaceable human remains are sampled worldwide, raising questions about consent, stewardship, and future preservation of these remains. Second, asymmetric research relationships persist: samples travel from the Global South while funding, analysis, and decision-making (and the first and corresponding authorships that follow) remain concentrated in Global North institutions. Community-engagement guidelines and critiques of "helicopter research" have pushed the field toward accountability, but adherence remains voluntary. I would like to see journals and funders require documented local co-leadership, transparent provenance and consent records, alongside sustained investment in laboratory capacity where the remains originate.”

Source: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1137580

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· 3d

Last year, historian-archaeologist Gérard Chouin proposed that well-known later medieval West African terracotta statues, covered w/ what seem to be pustules, may reflect the importation of smallpox via "Sahara exchanges between Sahelian societies and the Islamic and Mediterranean worlds."

Figure 8.1. Seated figure (front and back) from Jenne-jeno, possibly showing pustules or signs of disease, thirteenth century. Middle Niger civilization.
Source: Chouin, Gérard. “Snakes, Rashes, and Afflicted Bodies: Terracottas and Images of Disease in Medieval West Africa,” in: Materialities of Disease Across the Medieval World: Images, Objects, and Remains, edited by Lori Jones (Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2025), pp. 203-232.

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· 3d

Now look at the dating ranges proposed by Romero Gonzáles et al. Note that the later "Viking" lineages from Europe branch off from the rest of the smallpox evolutionary tree ca. 750 CE (red arrow), while the Chilean strains have a proposed branching off date of ca. 1296 (red box). 500-yr difference!

Romero González et al. 2026, Fig. 2. Molecular clock dating of variola virus evolution.

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· 3d

My lingering concern about the "spin" put on the present study is that it presumes the Chilean strain of smallpox comes from Europe. That it is the result of European colonialism need not be contested, given the dating. But I note something in @lizziewade.bsky.social's write-up in @science.org.

July 30, 2026 – Science,
Ancient DNA shows how smallpox got to the Americas “Landmark” paper finds European contact introduced the disease
LIZZIE WADE
https://www.science.org/content/article/ancient-dna-confirms-historical-accounts-how-smallpox-got-americas

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· 3d

The Lauchheim (Germany), Gobas (Iberia), & Siberian genomes were not included in the phylogeny drawn up by the new study by Romero González et al., which is what prompted my initial hesitation about their results. I would still want to see an analysis w/ them all, but my main concern lies elsewhere.

A comparison of the phylogeny proposed by Romero Gonzáles, in a presentation made to the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution in June (a prelude to the present study), and the phylogenies that include the Siberian (Crubézy et al. 2026) and Lauchheim and Iberian (Rodriguez-Varela et al. 2024) genomes.

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· 3d

The Chilean genomes are very high-quality, so comparing them with other smallpox aDNA that has been retrieved over the past decade could easily be done. Here's my own (unofficial) running list of pub'd genomes:

A chart listing the smallpox (aVARV) genomes that have been retrieved and published since 2016, not including the two new genomes from Chile.

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· 3d

Two important studies--both v. recent--document osteomyelitis variolosa in late Roman Britain & early post-Contact Peru (see ALT-TEXT for links). In both cases, they provide evidence (for their respective regions) for smallpox-like infections earlier than can currently be documented by aDNA.

Comparison of x-rays of bones showing the effects of osteomyelitis variolosa, with photographs of the same condition in a late medieval or early modern sample.
Source: Haoyue Zhao and Andrew Wilson, "A Case of Osteomyelitis variolosa from Roman Britain, and the Introduction of Smallpox to the Roman World," Journal of Roman Archaeology 38 (2025), 1–32.

Fig. 12. Comparison of elbows affected bilaterally by osteomyelitis variolosa. (a) Radiograph of elbows of a 56-year-old man (Khurana et al. 2019, figs. 3 and 4, details). (b) Radiograph of elbows of a 65-year-old woman (Purandarnath and Douraiswami 2011, fig. 4). (c) Photograph of the elbow bones of a medieval or early modern skeleton identified as of a woman aged between 20 and 49, from the convent of the Jacobins at Rennes, France (Colleter 2021, fig. 2, detail, courtesy of R. Colleter).

Diagram showing the parts of the skeleton of a 1.5-year-old toddler from circum-Contact Peru affected by osteomyelitis variolosa.
Source: Khrystyne Tschinkel, John Verano, and Gabriel Prieto. “Two cases of smallpox from 1540 CE circum-contact (early colonial) Northern Coastal Peru,” International Journal of Paleopathology 45 (June 2024), 35-45.

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· 3d

A tl;dr summary of the following 🧵: the recovery of smallpox aDNA from an early modern Chilean site is a VERY IMPORTANT milestone in the history of this global disease--still the only human disease to be completely eradicated. My reservation is whether claims of a European source are supported.

A diagram combining a phylogenetic tree showing the relations of medieval, early modern, and modern smallpox genomes, with a map showing their origins in South America and Europe. Source: Bruno Romero González, Margarita Reyes-Madrid, Bernardo Arriaza, Lara M. Cassidy, Mauricio Moraga, Constanza de la Fuente Castro, and Shigeki Nakagome. “The genomic identity of early smallpox in South America,” Science 393, no. 6810 (30 Jul 2026), 504-508, DOI: 10.1126/science.aee695.

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· 8d

I needed something really smart to read tonight. Here's something neat for folks doing #GlobalMiddleAges work: journals.plos.org/plosone/arti... #Trans-SaharanTrade #MedievalSky #AfricanHistory

An excerpt from de Palaminy et al. 2026 on the sources of Fatimid gold coins found in the Caesarea hoard:
"The number of Early Islamic single gold coins and hoards discovered in excavations over the past decades has grown exponentially, particular those minted during the Fatimid period (10th-11th c.) [65]. As a result, numismatic research has made impressive advances with publication of a detailed corpus of these coins [66,67]. In 2015, a hoard of 2,668 gold coins of this period, one of the largest hoard of its kind ever discovered in the Eastern Mediterranean (weighing 7.5 kg), was found in a shipwreck in the ancient harbor of Caesarea, Israel [68]. Now housed in the Coin Department of the Israel Antiquities Authority in Jerusalem, this assemblage offers a rare and valuable case study for gold provenance research. It presents two major advantages: it is both “sourced” and “sealed.” First, its archaeological context is securely known—unlike coins in most numismatic collections, which mostly derive from undocumented donations. Second, having remained underwater for nearly a millennium, the hoard has not been subject to post-depositional processes such as reminting, recycling, or forgery, nor chemical cleaning, preserving the original metallurgical composition of the coins."

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· 14d

Absolutely essential reading on why AI cannot "do" history.

"It is a fact that AI is inherently incapable of producing an accurate image of the past. The data on which image recognition and generative models are based rely on statistics and probability to arbitrate the truth. Algorithmic mediation of the past means that the greatest weight will be given to what privileged institutions have already been able to preserve in the greatest numbers."

"In other words, AI is unable to treat evidence — or people — equally with context and knowledge of how that evidence relates to the inequities built into museums and image archives themselves. Yet the more space we grant to Big AI, in partnership with an authoritarian state, into institutions of historical research and public communication about history, the less able we will be to find our way toward historical accounts that have fallen into the cracks of algorithmic data sets."

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· 19d

The teaching module--"The Black Death: The Medieval Plague Pandemic through the Eyes of Ibn Battuta"--is available as a single-file download here: doi.org/10.17613/qez.... The individual files for each element of the module can be found here: www.history21.com/owit-module/.... No registration req'd

Cover page of "The Black Death: The Medieval Plague Pandemic through the Eyes of Ibn Battuta" by Monica H Green (History for the 21st Century, 2025).

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· 22d

Oh wow! This is a big deal in leprosy studies. The 1st aDNA genomes from Asia: "the observed phylogeographical patterns are consistent with the hypothesis that this lineage originated in southern East Asia." Branch 0 is documented in Asia, medieval Europe & Oceania. www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Fu et al. 2026 figure 2A: "Geographic distribution and phylogenetic relationships of Branch 0 M. leprae strains. A The map shows the sampling locations and inferred dispersal routes of M. leprae Branch 0 lineages across Eurasia and the Pacific Islands. Arrows indicate hypothesized migration routes and do not represent directly observed movements. The basemap used in this figure is in the public domain and accessible through the Natural Earth website (https://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-raster-data/)."

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· 25d

"Among this year’s cohort [is] Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, pioneering scholar and writer on civil rights." www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/92-new-...

Dr Kimberlé W. Crenshaw FBA, Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Distinguished Professor of Law and the Promise Institute Chair on Human Rights at UCLA School of Law, said:

"I am honoured to join the ranks of such a distinguished group of fellow academics whose scholarship has carried immense weight. I regard this appointment not only as a personal recognition. I also view it as an affirmation, especially at a time when knowledge is under attack, that scholarship from and for the margins has a rightful place in prestigious academic spaces around the world."

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· 27d

This came in the mail today. I've been waiting 3 years for it!

Photo of the front cover of Hurst, Derek, ed. Burials and the Black Death in Hereford: The New Library Excavation, Hereford Cathedral (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2026). The image shows, in the background, Hereford Cathedral, and in the foreground a corroded sword retrieved from the excavation.

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· 28d

Story in Arizona Republic about Trump's "slashing" (yes, in the headline!) two monuments in Utah including land sacred to local tribes. Cut back by 96 & 91%! www.azcentral.com/story/news/l...

Photo: A view of Bears Ears National Monument, Utah on April 5, 2022.
Joel Angel Juarez/The Republic

Text: "In a signing ceremony hastily live-streamed late Monday, President Donald Trump gutted two national monuments in Utah, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. The cuts were nearly fatal, slashing Grand Staircase by 96 percent, Bears Ears by 91 percent, reducing each to a pair of small parcels."

From the Arizona Republic story: "Today's action threatens to destroy precious cultural places that are part of our histories and identities as Native peoples," said Georgie Pongyesva, who is Hopi. "Many assume that cultural sites have been abandoned, or refer to them as 'ruins.' These places are not abandoned, nor are they ruined. These are living landscapes for which tribes are the original stewards, and we are the living descendants of the ancestors that left their footprints and writings on these landscapes."

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· Jul 9

What's the significance of the "single spillover" finding? It means that, whatever the host species is for Bundibugyo, this outbreak in human populations is the result of as single transferral, which was then sustained in humans. This is historically common: doi.org/10.1093/jhma...

The abstract for Green, "The Pandemic Arc: Expanded Narratives in the History of Global Health" (2024).

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· Jul 6

Just attended the #IMC2026 roundtable on Rats & Mice. Of obvious interest to me as a plague historian. But also an amazing example of how new topics can flourish when disciplines are brought together around a common topic. In this case, archaeology, archival studies, art history, & more! Bravo!

A detail of an illustrated manuscript, showing a scribe, Hildebertus, at his desk, while a mouse eats his food on his dining table. From Jacqueline Leclercq-Marx, Faculté de Philosophie et Sciences sociales, Université Libre de Bruxelles, "The common perception of mice in the Middle Ages. Some textual and iconographic evidence," International medieval Congress Leeds 2026.

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· Jul 5

Keeping this as my souvenir of the 250th.

Important Announcement from
SALUTE TO AMERICA

IMMEDIATE EVACUATION

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· Jul 3

Also important from the same collection as Kostick's essay is this co-written piece w/ climate historian Francis Ludlow: "Subsistence Crises, Mass Mortality, Epidemic Disease, and Drought in Early Medieval Europe and the Near East, 750–1000 CE," doi.org/10.1484/M.IM... #histmed #MedievalSky

Opening paragraph of Ludlow and Kostick 2026:
"In this chapter we argue that, contrary to common perception, sufficiently robust historical material exists for early medieval Europe and the Near East to begin to identify patterns of association between extreme weather conditions and social crises — mass mortality and epidemics among them — in a manner that is more than anecdotal. This exercise can be enhanced by an ever-increasing body of data from natural proxy sources such as tree-rings (our focus here), ice cores, and speleothems, which allow us to discern and reconstruct many aspects of the climate of the period with growing confidence. These aspects range from longer-term (low-frequency) changes in background climate, up to inter-annual (high-frequency) changes in climate and the incidence of extreme weather.[1] In the context of ongoing human modification of the global climate, with increases in the frequency and severity of extreme weather, there is a pressing need to capitalize upon humanity’s written heritage to achieve a fuller understanding of past human vulnerability to extreme weather. The early medieval period is particularly understudied in this context.[2]"

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· Jul 3

And to substantiate Kostick's useful suggestions about the need to expand our conceptualizations of the long "tails" of the medieval plague pandemics, one could add this 2024 essay on focalization, that is, how plague embeds itself in local landscapes: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Citation to Green, Monica H., and Nahyan Fancy. “Plague History, Mongol History, and the Processes of Focalisation Leading up to the Black Death: A Response to Brack et al.,” Medical History 68, no. 4 (Fall 2024), 411-435, https://doi.org/10.1017/mdh.2024.29.

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· Jul 3

For syllabi for the Fall, this looks like a great way to squeeze climate history into your readings. "historians have an exciting new tool for testing their sources. .. Adso’s Miracles of St Mansuy emerges as a text whose description of the terrible impact of a drought is not simply topos."

The concluding paragraph of Kostick's essay:
"When astronomers wielding new technologies obtain fresh data from distant parts of the universe, they are often able to reassess known physics, sometimes in a revolutionary fashion. In a similar way, new climate data allow us to look again at the human past and reassess the texts we have been using to explore it. Saints’ Lives form a substantial portion of the medieval sources, and many of them contain significant historical information that can now be reappraised using the tools of climate science. In the case of Adso’s Miracles of St Mansuy, this has allowed for the identification of a novel, modest famine in north-eastern France and an outbreak of plague. The latter discovery is potentially revolutionary, should Y. pestis be proven — via DNA — to be responsible."
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.5.152713

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· Jul 3

The latest addition to the 2nd Plague Pandemic bibliography should probably go under the heading "Plague 1.5". This is Conor Kostick's study of a hitherto-dismissed historical source from the 10thC, talking about plague & famine in northern France. #MedievalSky #histmed 🧪 doi.org/10.1484/M.IM...

Costick's quote from Adso of Montier-en-Der’s Miracles of St Mansuy:

"A scourge of sickly disaster, having been driven through the people by the judgment of God, became red-hot. For with a likeness to the plague of the groin that formerly swept away the people of Italy, a certain lateral pain with a renewed bud was strewn everywhere. And advancing with fatal success, the plague spread far and wide to the borders of the regions, and thus from an evil beginning there was a serious accumulation of sicknesses: the commoners died, the notable people perished. With no differentiation between the genders or the social orders the streams of dead were rolled along the ground."

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· Jul 1

An excerpt from the story in the AZ Republic.

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· Jun 30

Well, what do you know. The Renaissance Society of America has created a prize parallel to the one the Medieval Academy created several years ago, to "demonstrate the relevance of Renaissance studies (1300-1700) to our contemporary world." Interesting! cc: @medievalacademy.bsky.social

Announcement of new Renaissance Studies Association prize for articles that "demonstrate the relevance of Renaissance studies (1300-1700) to our contemporary world."

Announcement page for the Monica H Green Prize by the Medieval Academy of America, acknowledging work that "shows the important of studying the medieval past to understand the present."

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· Jun 29

How this photo by Arizona Republic photographer Michael Chow did not win a Pulitzer, I don't know. A stunning encapsulation of both the fierce fury of the fire & the physical grandeur of the Grand Canyon. Link in ALT-TEXT.

Photograph of the 2025 Dragon Bravo Fire on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, by Arizona Republic photographer Michael Chow. See https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2026/06/29/grand-canyon-starts-to-recover-from-2025-dragon-bravo-fire/90623097007/.

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· Jun 25

Okay, folks, here's the latest in predatory journals. Predatory publishers! Just got the following notice from an outfit claiming to have *published for me* a piece I just brought out in my own prof. society's journal. DELETE DELETE DELETE!

Screenshot of an email (with a prominent "View Now" link the recipient is encouraged to click on) saying:

From: <canyam@mail.vip.canyam.com>
Date: Wed, Jun 24, 2026 at 3:00 PM
Subject: Your article has been published in [SPECULUM-A JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL STUDIES]

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· Jun 24

Context: Springer-Nature is not even an American company! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springe...

Opening of the Wikipedia entry on Springer-Nature.

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· Jun 24

And here's the accompanying notice that explains the practice. (H/t to Philippe Guillet for making the inquiry of the Uzerche tourist board. And thanks to Laurence LÉONARD, of the Uzerche tourist board.) #MedievalSky

Explanation for the practice of hanging walnut boughs in the French town of Uzerche, coming from a medieval practice to protect against plague. Link: https://www.facebook.com/terresdecorreze, posted 24 June 2026.

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· Jun 21

Yes, it's a shame that more of Salerno's/Monte Cassino's rich medical literary heritage hasn't survived *in situ*. I'd been working on the *Trotula* for years before I ever visited, b/c there are literally no copies left in S. Italy (save one on Sicily that I never got to see). It's a lovely place.

An 18th-century engraving showing the port of Salerno as it would look when approaching it from the sea. Hills are in the background; the city is in the center; and ships can be seen in the harbor.

Caption as published in Monica H. Green, The *Trotula*: A Compendium of Medieval Women's Medicine (UPenn, 2001), p. 5: Figure . The city of Salerno as depicted in an eighteenth-century engraving. Reproduced from Arcangelo R. Amarotta, Salerno romana e medievale: Dinamica di un insediamento, Società Salernitana di Storia Patria, Collana di Studi Storici Salernitani, 2 (Salerno: Pietro Laveglia, 1989), p. 12.

Monica H Green@monicamedhist· Jun 19

On the African Burial Ground in New York City, & Dr Lorenzo Pace's sculpture. I knew about the ABG thanks to publications of the bioarchaeologists involved in the excavation. Delighted to learn today about Dr Pace's artistic commemoration.