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Rachel Singer

@rachelbsinger.bsky.social
9.2K followers 1.9K following 144 posts

Environmental historian of first-millennium Britain/Ireland and Merovingian Gaul. PhD Candidate at Georgetown researching infectious disease, rebel nuns, and disaster. Philly sports fan and weird rescue animal enthusiast by night. rachelbsinger.com

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Reposted by Rachel Singer
Trevor Wiley @mearcsteppende.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Want to learn how early medieval people living on the coast in Scotland hunted seals and seabirds? Or how collecting sea snails on the beach was part of new Christian practice? You should check out my new article in Water History! link.springer.com/article/10.1... #medievalsky
link.springer.com
Wild animals, small practices, and the formation of an early medieval coastal landscape on the Firth of Forth - Water History
The large-scale landscape changes that occurred in northern Britain from roughly 400–800 C.E. were built on a vast array of smaller shifting practices which reflected the realities of local environmen...
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Reposted by Rachel Singer
Merle Eisenberg @merleeisenberg.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Great new plague article by David Gyllenhaal just dropped. Find it: online.ucpress.edu/SLA/article/.... Abstract below and it is open-access. But it's a brilliant explanation of why plague is prominent in early Islam and why it remains central to Islamic thought before the Black Death
This article attempts to explain why the Muslims of the first two hijri centuries came to view as martyrs those who died of a mysterious illness that they called the Stabber (al-ṭāʿūn). It finds the answer to that question at the intersection of the unique social pressures attendant on the Arab conquests, the presence of endemic Yersinia pestis in Greater Syria, the prior inheritance of Jewish and Christian ideas about the meaning of disease, and the distinctive view of salvation history found in the Qurʾan. Early Muslims simultaneously affirmed the ancient Jewish and Christian theory of epidemic disease as divine punishment and gave it a separate meaning for their own community, as a martyrdom and a mercy, which set the conquering minority of Muhajirun apart in death as well as in life. In illuminating this process, the article writes a new cultural history of epidemic disease in the late antique world and revisits some of our fundamental assumptions about retrospective diagnosis and the discourse of disease in premodern culture. Its findings should be relevant to scholars of Christianity and Islam, to Syriacists, scholars of premodern disease, and to anyone invested in the current conversation about Yersinia pestis, epidemic disease, and environmental history in Late Antiquity.
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Science Magazine @science.org · 05/08/2026
A new analysis in Science of DNA from Chilean mummies has revealed the earliest known strain of ancient smallpox from the Americas. The findings offer the clearest genetic evidence yet that European colonization brought this disease to the New World. Learn more: scim.ag/4w3Sl5U
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
I don’t think many people on here knew her, but my dog, Martha, died yesterday, and she was really special. 💔
Black and tan dog with her head on a sofa arm rest Black and tan dog at the lakeBlack and tan dog on the couch
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Flyers
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Flyers
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Reposted by Rachel Singer
Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 13/04/2026
It's #PlantAppreciationDay, so we want to show some love for the uses of plants in #archaeology! 🏺 Preserved plant remains can teach us a lot about life in the past, and we explore a few examples in this mini #AntiquityThread 1/7 🧵
Four microscopic images of pollen.
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
Baserunning this bad on the Phanatic’s birthday is just mean
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Nevermind, they are back
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Who are these competent batters, and what have they done with my Phillies?
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Reposted by Rachel Singer
Mateusz Fafinski @calthalas.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
History without historians is doomed to fail. With an interdisciplinary team of scholars we show how the purported link between late Roman conflicts and drought has been misunderstood. We also outline a path forward in the use of sources in paleoclimatic research. link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
Drought, Conflict and the Use of Historical Data and Methodologies in Interdisciplinary Palaeoclimatic Research - Climatic Change
Climatic Change - A major challenge in the interdisciplinary study of past climates is ensuring that evidence and data relating to different disciplines are analysed effectively using appropriate...
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
A question for my #medievalsky manuscript friends: has anyone ever come across a manuscript with white spots on it, as in the image below? Or any other MS that seemed diseased? I'm particularly interested in early medieval British and Irish instances, but I'd love to hear about anything you've got!
Medieval manuscript with a number of white spot blemishes on the right-hand side. Image source, Jiří Vnouček, "The Parchment of the Codex Amiatinus in the Context of Manuscript Production in Northumbria Around the End of the Seventh Century," Journal of Paper Conservation 20 (2019): fig. 13
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
Philly sports and I are on a break
Badly drawn, grainy, blue and gold award ribbon labeled “fell for it again award”
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Reposted by Rachel Singer
Dr Sam Leggett @samleggs22.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
🌟New Year exciting new OA paper🌟 doi.org/10.1080/0076... from myself @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social, @shakenbeck.bsky.social & TC O'Connell @cam-archaeology.bsky.social "Large-Scale Isotopic Data Reveal Gendered Migration into Early Medieval England c ad 400–1100" using #isotopes & #aDNA🧵⬇️ 1/
Graphical abstract for the paper. Skeletons with male & female grave goods (sword and brooches with bead string), with arrows to a tooth showing the type of analyses & subsequent information you can get from them. First arrow goes to isotopes which tell about individual migration; strontium is linked to food and underlying soils/geology; oxygen is linked to drinking water and to the climate. The second arrow goes to DNA which informs about ancestry and relatedness. To the right is a map of Europe, Western Asia and Northern Africa with a big oval of arrows to indicate movement around all areas of the map, and a map pin in England with arrows from various regions leading to it, to show that people moved from all across the map into England in the early medieval period.
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
Go birds 🦅🏈
Woman in eagles gear holding giant Philadelphia cream cheeseWoman wearing eagles gear and giant Philadelphia cream cheese hatLambeau Field lit up Eagles vs Packers game still
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
Philly sports and I are on a break
Badly drawn, grainy, blue and gold award ribbon labeled “fell for it again award”
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
Go birds 🦅🏈
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Reposted by Rachel Singer
George Clay @g-g-clay.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
An article I wrote about emotions and colonialism has just come out in The Sixteenth Century Journal - you can find it below or message me if you’d like a PDF! The Sixteenth Century Journal: Vol 56, No 2 www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
journals.uchicago.edu
The Emotional Dimensions of Colonial Rule in the Sixteenth-Century Andes: José de Acosta, Jesuits, and Emotions During the Great Resettlement* | The Sixteenth Century Journal: Vol 56, No 2
This article examines the writings of the Jesuit José de Acosta (1540–1600) on Andean governance at the time of the Great Resettlement (a late-sixteenth-century Spanish attempt to resettle Andean peop...
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 25/05/2025
Pangur Bán and his owner might disagree, lol
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
Louse-borne relapsing fever is an important part of early British infectious disease history since William MacArthur’s 1949 speculation that it caused the mysterious, sixth-century outbreaks often assumed to be plague. It’s therefore Enormously exciting to have new paleoscientific evidence of it!
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Reposted by Rachel Singer
Janet E Kay @janetekay.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
Want to learn how a careful study of burial #archaeology can improve our understanding of past disease events, especially the First #Plague #Pandemic (6th-8th centuries)? Check the #OpenAccess article I led in this month’s issue of Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies!
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
It exists in the physical world! @merleeisenberg.bsky.social
Photo of physical copy of “Burial Archaeology and the First Plague Pandemic” article
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The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast @mmapod.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
New #SpeculumSpotlight episode!! @medievalacademy.bsky.social
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
My colleagues, Janet Kay, Jordan Wilson and I went on @mmapod.bsky.social to promote our new Speculum article, “Burial Archaeology and the First Plague Pandemic.” Give it a listen if you’re interested! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...
podcasts.apple.com
The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast
History Podcast · Updated Monthly · The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast brings medievalists from all professional and disciplinary tracks together to think and talk about the too-oft-unsung diversit...
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Reposted by Rachel Singer
Yale Classics Library @yaleclassicslib.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
New issue of Speculum Vol. 100, No. 2 (2024) www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/spc/2025... @chicagojournals.bsky.social @medievalacademy.bsky.social @merleeisenberg.bsky.social @rachelbsinger.bsky.social
journals.uchicago.edu
Speculum | Vol 100, No 2
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
New, OA article! Here my coauthors and I (led by the lovely Janet E. Kay) ponder what burial archaeology would bring to the table as we seek to understand the First Plague Pandemic (spoiler alert: we think it could contribute quite a lot!) www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
journals.uchicago.edu
Burial Archaeology and the First Plague Pandemic | Speculum: Vol 100, No 2
Abstract Archaeological evidence from funerary contexts is largely ignored in current scholarship on the First Plague Pandemic, despite the important information that burials and cemeteries can provid...
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
For folks in DC, I’m giving a talk on early Irish animal disease next week!
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
Split squad spring training game means 2 Phillies games at once let’s gooo
2 different Phillies baseball games playing on a laptop and a tv
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Reposted by Rachel Singer
Daniella M. @farsouthhistory.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
Check out Rachel Singer's review of Annalisa Marzano's "Plants, Politics and Empire in Ancient Rome," published in 2022 by @cambridgeup.bsky.social; review now available @hnetreviews.bsky.social #envhist #envhum #planthist #plantstudies www.h-net.org/reviews/show...
h-net.org
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
I wrote a book review!
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
AAAAAHHHHHGGHH
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
Midnight green food coloring test for next week… Go birds 🦅🏈 #FlyEaglesFly
Square cake with midnight green buttercream and “EAGLES” written sloppily on it in white icing
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Philadelphia Eagles @philadelphiaeagles.bsky.social · 26/01/2025
Took command of the NFC 😏 Toyota | #FlyEaglesFly
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
Today’s writing session is brought to you by a DAVIDsTEA strawberry matcha latte
Open laptop with a word doc about early Merovingian queens open on it and a medieval marginalia sticker of a rabbit with a shield and spear riding a snail with an elderly, male, human face. The laptop sits next to a mug containing a matcha latte and a fake plant in a glass globe hangs down into frame between them.
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Juliette Waterman @juliettewaterman.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
Very glad to share the findings from my PhD work on raptors from archaeological sites, showing an early pattern of urban scavenging! #archaeobirds www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Tracking 4000 years of raptor diets through isotope analysis reveals urban scavenging with implications for conservation
Birds of prey (‘raptors’) often consume anthropogenic foods and can be closely associated with human settlements. In medieval Britain, birds of prey w…
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Dagomar Degroot @dagomardegroot.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
Today I’m debuting a new #EnvHist podcast series, “The Climate Chronicles.” In 8 seasons and 42 episodes, I’ll tell the remarkable story of how #ClimateChange influenced humanity’s past. Visit the website: theclimatechronicles.com (1/6)
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Rory Naismith @rorynaismith.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
Very pleased to see this out now. Behind paywall for the moment, but hoping to have that changed … academic.oup.com/past/advance...
academic.oup.com
Economic Change, Silver, and the Plague of 664–687 in England*
Abstract. Bede and other authors describe a destructive wave of plague sweeping across Britain and Ireland in the period 664–87. In the decades around and
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Rory Naismith @rorynaismith.bsky.social · 05/01/2025
A very exciting and important new piece of reading from @helengittos.bsky.social on connections between 6th/7th-century England and the Near East. Highly recommended! academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-...
academic.oup.com
Sutton Hoo and Syria: The Anglo-Saxons Who Served in the Byzantine Army?*
Abstract:. The Sutton Hoo ship burial is one of the most famous examples of a group of lavishly furnished graves of the late sixth and early seventh centur
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 04/01/2025
!!!
Photo of box of Lego Notre Dame de Paris set with black and tan coonhound dog lurking in the background
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George Clay @g-g-clay.bsky.social · 02/01/2025
I just published a piece in The Journal of Jesuit Studies, about the Jesuit Alonso de Sandoval, who wrote one of the most important eyewitness accounts of slavery in the seventeenth-century Caribbean. The piece has been published in open access here: brill.com/view/journal...
brill.com
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 25/12/2024
Merry Christmukkah to all! 🕎🎄
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The English Historical Review @enghistrev.bsky.social · 23/12/2024
Article in our 600th Issue: Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social on 'Contextualising Edix Hill: First-Pandemic Plague and Britain' academic.oup.com/ehr/article/...
academic.oup.com
Contextualising Edix Hill: First-Pandemic Plague and Britain*
Abstract:. The 2019 discovery of Yersinia pestis ancient DNA at Edix Hill in Cambridgeshire unquestionably confirms that plague was present in sixth-centur
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 22/12/2024
It’s my birthday, so the Eagles aren’t allowed to lose today. Go birds! 🦅🦅🦅
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 14/12/2024
My convent of weird rescue animals has a new postulant - everyone meet Holly!
Photograph of a woman with brown hair and glasses wearing a gray coat hugging a medium-sized red and white dogTwo dogs - an older black and tan one and a younger red, white, and black oneRed and white dog napping
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Post the LAST SENTENCE of your last article/chapter. “It is possible that the ‘periphery’ has something vital to tell us about the ‘core’ or the whole, should we choose to listen.”
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Medievalist.net @medievalists.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Study Suggests Plague Reached Britain Earlier Than Thought - good research from @rachelbsinger.bsky.social www.medievalists.net/2024/11/study-… #historysky #pandemics #plague
medievalists.net
Study Suggests Plague Reached Britain Earlier Than Thought - Medievalists.net
Medieval historians have often downplayed how the First Pandemic, also known as the Justinianic Plague, affected Britain. A new study is challenging this notion, and even suggests that the plague may…
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Dr Tiggy McLaughlin @amalasuentha.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
Not super excited about having to start a brand new social media presence *again.* But very excited to reconnect with a bunch of late antique and early Christianity friends I haven't seen since my Twexodus in 2021!
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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
Wow, I somehow already have more followers here than I did in the other place. Thanks so much, everybody!
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The English Historical Review @enghistrev.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
Recent article on Advance Access: Rachel Singer on 'Contextualising Edix Hill: First-Pandemic Plague and Britain' @rachelbsinger.bsky.social #plague academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-...
academic.oup.com
Contextualising Edix Hill: First-Pandemic Plague and Britain*
Abstract:. The 2019 discovery of Yersinia pestis ancient DNA at Edix Hill in Cambridgeshire unquestionably confirms that plague was present in sixth-centur
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Dr. Jeroen W.P. Wijnendaele @drdragases.bsky.social · 12/11/2024
So... I have awoken from my 7+ months slumber, to see dozens and dozens of people having flocked here. Let's get this resistance party started. Hello everyone! I mainly tweet about everything you wanted to know about "The Fall of Rome", but were afraid to ask. That and random geek stuff.
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