Special Editorial: WAC in the Time of Coronavirus

Special Editorial: WAC in the Time of Coronavirus John Carman, Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK E-mail: EDITORIAL Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress (Ó 2020) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11759-020-09396-6 We do not usually write an Editorial for a Special Issue. This, however, is a ‘special editorial’ written in an emergency situation. As we are in global war with the invisible enemy of Covid-19 Coronavirus pandemic, we face many restrictions and safety measures worldwide. For WAC, the most painful consequence is the postponement of WAC-9 (see the announcement by the WAC President) that was supposed to be held in Prague, 5–10 July 2020. WAC as a global organization is responsible for the safety of its membership during the main congresses and inter-congresses. At the time of writing this Editorial, the situation is not getting any better, just the opposite. While in China and South Korea we can see the first signs of successful quarantine, the pandemic reached Iran, Europe and North America in February, and decisively affected the lives of millions of people. The pandemic is still rising, and one of the Archaeologies co-editors is currently in quarantine. Concerning the prospect of WAC-9, we decided to postpone it by a whole year, so the current dates of the Prague congress are 4–9 July 2021. This wasn’t an easy solution but definitely the most safe and responsible one. Nobody knows how the pandemic is going to behave in the rest of this year; however, some epidemiologists are warning that there may be an autumn recurrence of the virus. So we hope that July 2021 may be the time in which we either have the virus globally under control and/or have the vaccine and medication available. Then we could organize the meeting without stress and fear and make our global meeting even more successful. The reason why we are so surprised and unprepared for the global disease outbreak is that the immediate experience with such danger has disappeared from our living memory. The 1918 influenza pandemic called the ‘Spanish flu’ occurred at the end of WW I, more than hundred years ago. The occurrence of global pandemics has a very long pedigree. Some of the Copper Age (Bateni in Russia—Afanasievo Culture 2909–2679 BC; Scope in Estonia—Corded Ware Culture 2575–2349 BC; Bulanovo in Russia—Sintasha Culture 2280–2047 BC) and Early Bronze Age burials from Central and Eastern Europe (Chociwel in Silesia—Poland—Únětice Culture 2135–1923 BC; Kytmanovo in Russia—Andronovo Culture 1746–1626 BC) ARCHAEOLOGIES Volume 16 Number 1 April 2020 Jan Turek, Center for Theoretical Study, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic Ó 2020 World Archaeological Congress 1 2 JOHN CARMAN AND JAN TUREK contained DNA from bacterium Yersinia pestis that caused the Black Death (Callaway 2015). This spread is usually connected with the migration of the Yamnaya Culture population westwards. These earliest cases of plague lacked a gene called ymt that helps the bacterium Yersinia pestis to colonize guts of fleas (often travelling on rodents) transmitting bacteria to humans. The later example comes from Early Iron Age Armenia 1048–855 BC, from the cemetery at Kapan, where the bacterium Yersinia pestis already harbouring the ytm was identified together with another mutation linked to fleaaided transmission. Since then, the plague became a fast spreading disease of civilization, such as in the case of the Medieval Bubonic plague (Callaway 2015). The earliest historical evidence of plague comes from 5th century BC Athens, the city-state that was at the time engaged in the Peloponnese War. So the mobility of humans and rodents and social misbalance, such as wartime, were the worst accelerators of pandemics. Medieval globalization brings the first recorded truly global outbreak of plague that first occurred in China in the 1330s, a time when China was engaged in substantial trade with Western Asia and Europe. The plague reached Europe in October 1347. The diseases commonly ‘travelled’ from East to West. In 1529, a measles outbreak in Cuba killed two-thirds of the natives who had previously survived European smallpox. Two years later, measles was responsible for the deaths of half the indigenous population of Honduras, and ravaged Mexico, Central America and the Inca civilization. In the modern world, the flow of ideas, information, goods, capital, and people across political and geographic boundaries allow infectious diseases to rapidly spread around the whole planet. The third plague pandemic emerged in Yunnan province of China in the mid-19th century. It spread east and south through China, reaching Guangzhou (Canton) and the British colonial port of Hong Kong in 1894, where it entered the global maritime trade routes. Plague reached Singapore and Bombay in 1896. Most similar to our current struggle is the outbreak of Spanish flu (1918–1920) that infected 500 million people around the world, or about 27% of the world population which was at that time between 1.8 and 1.9 billion. The death toll was estimated to have been anywhere from 17 million to 50 million or perhaps even more. The disease originated probably in Northern China and spread with the movement of soldiers and trade globally. In Europe and North America, it badly affected countries involved in the World War. Unlike Covid-19, it mainly killed young people in reproductive age. It came in three waves (see Fig. 1). The first wave started in late 1917 and early 1918. The second wave of the 1918 pandemic was much deadlier than the first. The first wave had resembled typical flu epidemics; those most at risk were the sick and elderly, while younger, healthier people recovered easily. By August, when the second wave began in Special Editorial: WAC in the Time of Coronavirus 3 Figure 1. Influenza Pandemic Mortality in America and Europe During 1918 and 1919 France, Sierra Leone, and the USA the virus had mutated to a much deadlier form. October 1918 was the deadliest month of the whole pandemic. The third wave came in February/March 1919 (Fig. 1). Much has changed in medical science and technology since the time of Spanish flu, but with ever-growing population and the unprecedented mobility of present day humankind we face new and yet unknown challenges of the 21st Century Global pandemic. We wish us all good health, open mind and good luck in coming time. See you in Prague 2021! Fig. 1 source: Image: courtesy of the National Museum of Health and Medicine)—Pandemic Influenza: The Inside Story. Nicholls H, PLoS Biology Vol. 4/2/2006, e50 https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0040050, Public Domain, https:// commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1441889 Reference Callaway, E. (2015). Bronze Age skeletons were earliest plague victims, Nature. https://doi. org/10.1038/nature2015.18633. 4 JOHN CARMAN AND JAN TUREK WAC-9—List of Sessions The following list of cu (...truncated)