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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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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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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

My understanding is you can do whatever you want with someone’s published data as long as you cite its source and make clear you didn’t collect it and they didn’t make the figure/argument you’re using it for. But it’s probably best to show the original scholars to be polite and for their feedback!

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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

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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 🧵

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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 · 03/04/2026

Who are these competent batters, and what have they done with my Phillies?

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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

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 · 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 · 31/01/2026

If it helps, even I am finding it difficult to convince my undergrads that I’m young and hip

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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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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 · 12/11/2025

Thanks! They were handing them out for free at the tailgate!

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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

It’s the flattest place I’ve ever been - here I am at Edix “Hill” in 2022 feeling betrayed by the name! The book I’m holding is the excavation report, because I could not believe that what I was looking at was the “hill” in question without triple-checking the map.

Confused looking woman stands in field holding book

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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

Oh, thank you! That’s very kind!

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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

Thanks, James! FWIW, I’m the first to admit I was probably wrong about the date, lol :)

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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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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 · 05/04/2025

lol, does it still count as East Coast bias if there’s only a 12-hour difference?

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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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Rachel Singer @rachelbsinger.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

NB: we’ve updated this piece since the preprint went up in 2023, so consider giving it another look even if you’ve already read that!

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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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