Pandemics, migration and climate change: a synthesis of 2020, one might say. Nonetheless, the same historical events and processes occurred during the Migration period, and today more and more studies are shedding new light on their interconnections, providing us with new keys to interpreting the present. However, in the face of accelerated globalisation, the coexistence of these phenomena calls for a faster response to today's global challenges: what are therefore the best policies to adopt and how can a better knowledge of our past help us?