The MALADI research program (Animal Diseases in Archaeology: Diagnosis and Impacts), a Humanities and Social Sciences chair funded by the Île-de-France region, will come to an end in autumn 2026. In this context, we are organizing a closing conference on September 9–10, 2026, in Paris, focusing on animal diseases in the past, their history, evolution, and impacts. This symposium is resolutely interdisciplinary, and contributions from all fields of study are invited (history, archaeology, philology, veterinary sciences, molecular biology, etc.) without geographical or chronological restriction, in order to foster dialogue around this still under-documented topic.

Animals have always coexisted with human societies—as sources of food and raw materials, providers of labor, companions, commensals, and pests—and their diseases have, in turn, often played a decisive role in shaping those same societies. Yet the sick animal remains a relatively overlooked figure in historical research: the evidence is scattered and diverse, and making sense of it requires a range of expertise that rarely comes together within a single discipline. 

This conference seeks to address this gap by bringing together scholars whose work, from complementary perspectives, sheds light on the long-term history of animal diseases and epizootics. Three main lines of inquiry will structure the discussions:

• Knowledge and representations: How did past societies name, describe, and interpret animal diseases? What explanatory frameworks did they use, and how did these evolve over time?
• Care and management practices: What treatments, preventive measures, or eradication strategies were implemented? How did stakeholders balance economic, sanitary, and symbolic imperatives?
• Biological and epidemiological dynamics: Which pathogens can be identified in written sources or biological remains, at what times and where? How did their presence, virulence, and diffusion evolve over the long term, under the influence of changes in farming practices, commercial exchanges, or climatic variations?

These questions naturally extend to the impacts of animal diseases on human societies. Beyond zoonoses—whose importance has recently been underscored—epizootics have led to food crises, economic reconfigurations, social tensions, and institutional responses whose comparative history remains to be written. They have also helped shape symbolic boundaries between humans and animals, and between the clean and the impure.

Contributions may draw on a wide variety of sources: archaeozoological and paleogenomic data, agronomic and zootechnical treatises, iconography, administrative and veterinary archives, as well as literary and legal testimonies. All historical periods and geographical areas are welcome, as are comparative and diachronic approaches, and local or regional case studies. Particular attention will be given to papers that bring several disciplines or several types of sources into dialogue.

We invite proposals for papers by 15 May 2026. Proposals must include a title and an abstract of no more than 250 words, written in French or English, and should be submitted on the MALADI conference website: 

https://maladi.sciencesconf.org/submission/submit

Papers will be 20 minutes long. They may be delivered in French or English, but papers delivered in French must be accompanied by English-language slides.