Medieval bioarchaeology
There is an interest in the Medieval Period when it comes to bioarchaeology, because of how differently people lived back then as opposed to now, in regards to not only their everyday life, but during times of war and famine as well.
[2]Justyna Jolanta Miszkiewicz, from the University of Kent, studied linear enamel hypoplasia and age-at-death in the medieval population of Canterbury, UK.
The results indicated that childhood stress might reflect adult mortality and that the health of individuals from diverse social backgrounds can be assessed using linear enamel hypoplasia analysis.
[5] Anne L. Grauer, Professor of Anthropology at Loyola University Chicago, assessed the presence of porotic hyperostosis and periosteal reactions in the population (n=1,014) from St. Helen-on-the-Walls in York, England.
The authors concluded that the living conditions of the medieval populations in Gruczno did not necessarily guarantee the good health of children and adolescents due to the exposure of pathological factors that disturbed their growth and development.
Once the stress has decreased or stopped, bone growth will resume, which results in a line of increased mineral density that can be seen in radiographs.
Cortisol levels from hair samples can provide evidence for stressors caused due to physical events but usually reflect dietary changes and movement.
[11] Bioarchaeologists can study the effects that activities and workload have on the skeleton in order to understand the kinds of labor that people were doing in the past.
[16] Amanda Agnew and Hedy Justus, from the Ohio State University, studied examples of trauma and stress in the population of Medieval Giecz in Poland.
The low evidence of intentional violence led the authors to conclude the unlikelihood of members of the population being involved in military activity, which was common in the area.
The authors also studied osteochondritis dissecans, which can be caused by repetitive traumatic events and the overuse of joints due to physical activity.
This study showed that 100% of the 400 individuals developed either spondylosis deformans or osteochondrosis by the time they were 40 years old, which was most likely due to historic gender-specific labor distribution.
The types of foods that were produced and eaten can yield information on how society was structured, on various settlement patterns, and on how healthy or unhealthy the population was.
[3] Dental caries is the scientific term for cavities or tooth decay as a result of bacteria fermenting carbohydrates in the mouth.
[19] A study done on the frequency of dental caries in a medieval population in Southwest France was done by researchers at the Université Paul-Sabatier.
One portion of the study was dedicated to using stable isotope analysis on individuals to reveal any dietary differences related to class.
The authors used stable isotope analysis on a total of 25 individuals and five animals to aid in their understanding of social differences at these sites.
[26] In 2013, Kristina Killgrove, a classicist and bioarchaeologist, studied individuals from a medieval cemetery site in Berlin, Germany.
