The horizon of understanding the epidemic phenomenon will also be broadened by taking into account data from soils understood as environmental reservoirs of pathogens and their vectors. The team wants to be a pioneer in this type of approach, which is still on the fringe of scientific approaches, whereas soils are undeniably important epidemic foci because of their preservation of bacterial traces over many years. The challenge to be taken up through this interdisciplinary approach is to make the link between environment - pathogens - vectors - hosts and this, notably (but not exclusively) through the comparative study of the three great plague pandemics. The comparative work on ancient and recent epidemics is thus called to be reconfigured around the triptych Population-Environment-Health.
It is thus, in the end, data of several orders that the team will cross with a view to producing new knowledge from a simultaneous reading (as much as possible) of historical archives (public or private documentation contemporary with the epidemic or the associated demographic crisis), biological archives (exhumed skeletons, genomes of the host/pathogen complexes), and also environmental archives.
A policy of openness to other research unitsThe
work will focus first on the plague, with a component dedicated to the study of the genetic heritage of past plague victims. Then, the identification of the Yersinia bacterium strains will be pursued in order to highlight the evolutionary history of this pathogen. This work, which has already given rise to several international communications and publications, will be pursued in the framework of collaborations with research units of Aix Marseille University, but also with structures located in other national and international scientific centers. Interdisciplinary and global research on epidemics will focus on all populations in difficult health situations: civilian populations (victims of natural disasters, displaced because of conflicts, besieged...), military populations (often living in precarious situations and being carriers or vectors of pathogens). In parallel to the identification of pathogens responsible for "abnormal" mortality events, some anatomical traits (especially discrete traits) will be analyzed on populations as possible indicators of stress, in relation with environmental pressure, or as potential indicators of genetic links. Finally, a synthesis of biological parameters will be carried out on all the deceased in order to understand who are the victims of these crises (age groups, sexes, socio-professional categories...).
In summary, in the coming contract, researchers in archaeoanthropology and biological anthropology aim to decompartmentalize the study of health crises and to evolve towards a cross-disciplinary approach to the epidemic body by associating with the disciplinary competences of the members of the "Corps, Normes, Santé" team (law, philosophy, medicine, odontology) The realization of collective works on epidemics in 2021 and 2022, with a resolutely transdisciplinary approach, reflect the voluntarism and the fruitfulness of this strategy of scientific openness. Moreover, the "population, environment, health in times of crisis" axis will be structured around a quadruple objective, at the same time fundamental (for example, knowledge of the health status of a population), methodological (for example, the challenge of studying soils and environmental DNA in a public health context), ethical (for example, respecting the integrity of human remains as much as possible), and patrimonial (for example, avoiding as much as possible destructive sampling and managing their future).
It is therefore in more than one way that the implementation of the scientific project of this axis will take into account and develop the internal collaborations of the "Corps, Normes, Santé" team.