Skeletal Health in Medieval Societies: Insights from Ancient Bone Collagen Stable Isotopes and Dental Histology
Human skeletal remains retrieved from medieval European archaeological sites are the most direct surviving evidence for bone and dental health, disease, and lifestyles of populations ruled by feudalism. Because the Middle Ages is a relatively recent perio
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Skeletal Health in Medieval Societies: Insights from Ancient Bone Collagen Stable Isotopes and Dental Histology Justyna J. Miszkiewicz, Tahlia J. Stewart, Chris A. Deter, Geraldine E. Fahy, and Patrick Mahoney
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Introduction
Traditionally, the study of human skeletal remains from ancient backgrounds (bioarchaeology) has examined skeletal size and shape in relation to written historical records or made interpretations based upon the archaeological record in order to contextualise the biology of once-living people [1–3]. The unique and irreplaceable value of ancient skeletal remains means that more invasive or destructive methods of analysis are undertaken less often [4]. However, recent advancements in microscopic, biochemical, and biomolecular techniques increasingly open up new possibilities for reconstructing human skeletal growth and physiology at the cell level from small amounts of tissue, thus greatly minimising the destruction to skeletal remains [5]. In this chapter, we provide selected examples of bioarchaeological studies that use a range of technical approaches to examine the effect of medieval socio-economic status (SES) on skeletal health, disease, and adult bone development (e.g. [6]). This chapter focuses on medieval bone tissue, but we also extend analyses to medieval human dental remains in the latter part of the chapter. We present both hard tissue types because teeth are often the only part of a skeleton that survives without damage due to their highly mineralised outer enamel coating. Furthermore, some aspects of lifestyle in the past leave a record in adult teeth that cannot otherwise be inferred from adult bone (e.g. weaning from permanent teeth). In other cases, analyses of both teeth and bone can be combined to gain novel insights into past human skeletal growth (also see Chap. 3) [7, 8]. J. J. Miszkiewicz (*) · T. J. Stewart School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] C. A. Deter · G. E. Fahy · P. Mahoney School of Anthropology and Conservation, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 J. J. Miszkiewicz et al. (eds.), Bone Health, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7256-8_2
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Studying the effects of medieval SES on skeletal growth is certainly complex. It is difficult to extract the exact individual behaviours or components of past daily lifestyles and subsequently match them accurately to a skeletal manifestation [9]. However, skeletal indicators of lifestyle can sometimes emerge when related to social strata as inferred from burial location (e.g. the layout and cemetery structure) [10], archaeological material culture (e.g. grave goods) deposited within and excavated from a grave [11], and/or written historical archival or other documentation describing medieval lives and lifestyles [12] (also see Chap. 3 for a specific example).
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