Integrating isotopes and documentary evidence: dietary patterns in a late medieval and early modern mining community, Sw
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Integrating isotopes and documentary evidence: dietary patterns in a late medieval and early modern mining community, Sweden Ylva Bäckström 1 & Jan Mispelaere 2 & Anne Ingvarsson 3 & Markus Fjellström 4 & Kate Britton 5,6
Received: 10 February 2017 / Accepted: 30 May 2017 # The Author(s) 2017. This article is an open access publication
Abstract This study explores the relationship between dietary patterns and social structure in a pre-industrial mining community in Salberget, Sweden c. 1470 to 1600 A.D. using a combination of different research approaches and tools, including archaeology, osteology, bone chemistry and history. The correlation between demographic criteria (sex and age) and archaeological variables (burial type and burial location) shows that Salberget was a highly stratified community. * Ylva Bäckström [email protected] Jan Mispelaere [email protected] Anne Ingvarsson [email protected]
Group diets were investigated through analyses of stable isotopes (carbon, δ13C, and nitrogen, δ15N) of bone collagen from a sub-sample of individuals buried at the site (n = 67), interpreted alongside data from human dental lesions and deficiencies, animal bone waste and information on eating habits extracted from the extensive historical documents regarding mining activities at Salberget. These integrated analyses provide a clear association between social status and diet and confirm that social status, and to a lesser extent sex, gender and age, likely governed food choice and opportunity in this diverse community. Keywords Late medieval/early modern . Preindustrial . Identities . Diet . Documentary sources . Bioarchaeology . Isotopes . Zooarchaeology . Dental palaeopathology
Markus Fjellström [email protected]
Introduction
Kate Britton [email protected]
In modern society, there is a close link between diet and social identity, for example, as reflected in dietary differences with economic status, religion, education, gender and age (e.g. Joyce 2005; Knudson and Stojanowski 2008; Zvelebil and Weber 2013). Such socio-cultural and socio-economic differences existed in late medieval and early modern society and were also likely to have influenced individual and group dietary habits (see for example Woolgar et al. 2006). While these aspects of past lives may be difficult to discern using traditional archaeological approaches, bioarchaeological—and specifically stable isotopic—approaches, in combination with documentary sources, have the potential to reveal insights into past dietary habits on individual- and population-scale levels. A large number of studies have demonstrated the ways which stable isotope data can illuminate medieval dietary habits in European populations, and social expressions of diet,
1
Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, LUX, Lund University, Box 192, 221 00 Lund, Sweden
2
The Swedish National Archives, Box 12541, 102 29 Stockholm, Sweden
3
Gustavianum, Uppsala University Museum, Akademigatan 3, 753 10 Uppsal
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