Stressing out in medieval Denmark: An investigation of dental enamel defects and age at death in two medieval Danish cemeteries

The Black Death in Hereford, England: A demographic analysis of the Cathedral 14th-century plague mass graves and associated parish cemetery

OBJECTIVES

This study explores the paleoepidemiology of the Black Death (1348-52 AD) mass graves from Hereford, England, via osteological analysis. Hereford plague mortality is evaluated in the local context of the medieval city and examined alongside other Black Death burials.

METHODS

The Hereford Cathedral site includes mass graves relating to the Black Death and a 12th-16th century parish cemetery. In total, 177 adult skeletons were analyzed macroscopically: 73 from the mass graves and 104 from the parish cemetery. Skeletal age-at-death was assessed using transition analysis, and sex and stress markers were analyzed.

RESULTS

The age-at-death distributions for the mass graves and parish cemetery were significantly different (p = 0.0496). Within the mass graves, young adults (15-24 years) were substantially over-represented, and mortality peaked at 25-34 years. From 35 years of age onwards, there was little variation in the mortality profiles for the mass graves and parish cemetery. Males and females had similar representation across burial types. Linear enamel hypoplasia was more prevalent within the mass graves (p = 0.0340) whereas cribra orbitalia and tibial periostitis were underrepresented.

CONCLUSIONS

Mortality within the Hereford mass graves peaked at a slightly older age than is seen within plague burials from London, but the overall profiles are similar. This demonstrates that young adults were disproportionately at risk of dying from plague compared with other age groups. Our findings regarding stress markers may indicate that enamel hypoplasia is more strongly associated with vulnerability to plague than cribra orbitalia or tibial periostitis.

Twenty-first century bioarchaeology: Taking stock and moving forward

This article presents outcomes from a Workshop entitled "Bioarchaeology: Taking Stock and Moving Forward," which was held at Arizona State University (ASU) on March 6-8, 2020. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the School of Human Evolution and Social Change (ASU), and the Center for Bioarchaeological Research (CBR, ASU), the Workshop's overall goal was to explore reasons why research proposals submitted by bioarchaeologists, both graduate students and established scholars, fared disproportionately poorly within recent NSF Anthropology Program competitions and to offer advice for increasing success. Therefore, this Workshop comprised 43 international scholars and four advanced graduate students with a history of successful grant acquisition, primarily from the United States. Ultimately, we focused on two related aims: (1) best practices for improving research designs and training and (2) evaluating topics of contemporary significance that reverberate through history and beyond as promising trajectories for bioarchaeological research. Among the former were contextual grounding, research question/hypothesis generation, statistical procedures appropriate for small samples and mixed qualitative/quantitative data, the salience of Bayesian methods, and training program content. Topical foci included ethics, social inequality, identity (including intersectionality), climate change, migration, violence, epidemic disease, adaptability/plasticity, the osteological paradox, and the developmental origins of health and disease. Given the profound changes required globally to address decolonization in the 21st century, this concern also entered many formal and informal discussions.

Paleodemography: From archaeology and skeletal age estimation to life in the past

Much of paleodemography, an interdisciplinary field with strong ties to archaeology, among other disciplines, is oriented toward clarifying the life experiences of past people and why they changed over time. We focus on how human skeletons contribute to our understanding of preindustrial demographic regimes, including when changes took place that led to the world as we know it today. Problems with existing paleodemographic practices are highlighted, as are promising directions for future work. The latter requires both better age estimates and innovative methods to handle data appropriately. Age-at-death estimates for adult skeletons are a particular problem, especially for adults over 50 years that undoubtedly are mistakenly underrepresented in published studies of archaeological skeletons. Better age estimates for the entirety of the lifespan are essential to generate realistic distributions of age at death. There are currently encouraging signs that after about a half-century of intensive, and sometimes contentious, research, paleodemography is poised to contribute much to understandings of evolutionary processes, the structure of past populations, and human-disease interaction, among other topics.

Conventional microscopy makes perikymata count and spacing data feasible for large samples

OBJECTIVES

Current methods of quantifying defects of dental enamel (DDE) include either gross or low-level examination for linear enamel hypoplasia, histological analysis of striae of Retzius, or scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of a tooth or a tooth cast. Gross examination has been shown to miss many defects. Other methods can be destructive, require transporting samples, and are expensive. Here, we show that digital light microscopy (DLM) can be used for the analysis of DDE as indicated by widened perikymata spacing (WPS). This method takes advantage of high-power (100×) microscopy, but is non-destructive, can be implemented almost anywhere, and is inexpensive.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

As proof of concept, we created photomontages of labial surfaces of five human canines from images made using DLM and SEM. We counted and measured the widths of all visible perikymata for each imaging modality and fit measurements to a negative curve representing the expected values for each tooth. We calculated residuals for each measurement. WPS were defined when R² was in the 90th percentile, and were considered matched in DLM and SEM images when observed within the same decile of the tooth surface.

RESULTS

There were more WPS detected in the images derived from DLM than from SEM. Overall, the data derived from the two imaging modalities provided similar information about the frequency and timing of stress during dental development.

CONCLUSIONS

The method described here allows for DDE data acquisition as WPS from large samples, making feasible population-level studies that reflect sophisticated understanding of dental development.

The ice age with little effect? Exploring stress in the Danish Black Friars cemetery before and after the turn of the 14th century

The Little Ice Age, beginning in Europe in the 14th century, saw a period of climatic cooling and increased precipitation where food sources dwindled and famine became rampant, particularly in urban city centers. This study focuses on the Black Friars population (13th-17th centuries) to explore changes in stress in Denmark at the onset of the Little Ice Age. This study specifically explores the periods before and after the turn of the 14th century. Forty-five adult individuals were analyzed for cribra orbitalia, porotic hyperostosis, and enamel hypoplastic lesions. Results showed no statistically significant differences between the prevalence of these stress indicators between either time period; however, reduced age at death and increased lesion frequency was more prevalent post-1300. It was expected that increased stress would be evident in those buried after the turn of the 14th century due to the many challenges associated with wide spread climatic cooling; however, the reliance on nutrient rich marine resources and alms provisions may have helped lessen the burden of these stressors during this period of climatic hardship. Additionally, while famine characterized the beginning of the 14^th century, agricultural rebound shortly after this period may have also influenced the stress levels observed.

Genetic resiliency and the Black Death: No apparent loss of mitogenomic diversity due to the Black Death in medieval London and Denmark

OBJECTIVES

In the 14th century AD, medieval Europe was severely affected by the Great European Famine as well as repeated bouts of disease, including the Black Death, causing major demographic shifts. This high volatility led to increased mobility and migration due to new labor and economic opportunities, as evidenced by documentary and stable isotope data. This study uses ancient DNA (aDNA) isolated from skeletal remains to examine whether evidence for large-scale population movement can be gleaned from the complete mitochondrial genomes of 264 medieval individuals from England (London) and Denmark.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Using a novel library-conserving approach to targeted capture, we recovered 264 full mitochondrial genomes from the petrous portion of the temporal bones and teeth and compared genetic diversity across the medieval period within and between English (London) and Danish populations and with contemporary populations through population pairwise Φ_ST analysis.

RESULTS

We find no evidence of significant differences in genetic diversity spatially or temporally in our dataset, yet there is a high degree of haplotype diversity in our medieval samples with little exact sequence sharing.

DISCUSSION

The mitochondrial genomes of both medieval Londoners and medieval Danes suggest high mitochondrial diversity before, during and after the Black Death. While our mitochondrial genomic data lack geographically correlated signals, these data could be the result of high, continual female migration before and after the Black Death or may simply indicate a large female effective population size unaffected by the upheaval of the medieval period. Either scenario suggests a genetic resiliency in areas of northwestern medieval Europe.

Enamel hypoplasia in a Mesolithic (5900±100 BC) individual from Woźna Wieś (Poland): a case study

Modern anthropological research includes very sophisticated diagnostic methods. They allow us to obtain information that has not been available so far. The aim of this paper is to analyze, using current microscopic technologies, the Mesolithic dental material of one adult individual from Woźna Wieś (Poland). The present case study will focus on the analysis of enamel hypoplasia. A scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to count the number of perikymata building on the hypoplastic line. Linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) was diagnosed only on the right mandibular canine. The time of occurrence of environmental disturbance was estimated between about 4.2 and 4.9 years of age. The occlusal wall built the enamel hypoplasia with no more than three to four perikymata, meaning that the physiological stress had to have occurred over a fairly short period of time (about 30-40 days).

Childhood health as reflected in adult urban and rural samples from medieval Denmark

This study examines the evidence of three skeletal markers relating to childhood health that leave permanent observable changes in the adult skeleton. Two are well known to paleopathology, namely Harris lines (HL) and linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH). The third skeletal marker is less commonly used; the permanent changes in the temporal bones, induced by chronic or recurrent infectious middle ear disease (IMED) in childhood. A total of 291 adult skeletons from an urban (n = 109) and a rural (n = 182) cemetery, from the Danish medieval period (1050-1536 CE) were included. The markers were examined for their co-occurrence, and differences between the two samples. No statistically significant difference for the three skeletal markers between the two samples was found. A trend was nevertheless apparent, with greater frequencies for all three skeletal markers for the urban population. A statistically significant relationship was found only between IMED and HL. This positive relation was very low (r_ɸ = 0.307, 0.275) and may be considered non-existent. The lack of co-occurrence is interpreted as if an individual was exposed to conditions that could cause the osteological expression of all three markers this could be a life-threatening health condition, during developing years.