This abstracts is part of session #264:
Title:
Childhood and adult diets in plague and famine victims from the medieval mining community of Kutná Hora (Czechia, 13th–16th century)
Content:
Due to intensive copper and silver mining activity, Kutná Hora developed into one of the most important centres of the medieval Czech Kingdom. Through overall prosperity, its inhabitants, however, had to face all the negative aspects of intensive urbanisation related to overcrowding and poor sanitation.
This study presents the preliminary results of dietary reconstruction of the local population buried in a medieval cemetery uncovered during rescue excavations around Kutná Hora/Sedlec ossuary. A total of 1837 skeletons were unearthed, mostly from mass burial pits. A combination of archaeological finds and radiocarbon dating enabled these graves to be linked with two historically documented events. The first group can be linked to the famine that occurred after climate changes and crop failures at the beginning of the 14th century (1318). The second group can be linked with the deadly plague epidemic in Europe in 1348–1350.
This study presents the carbon and nitrogen isotopic values of bone collagen of 90 individuals, removed from mass graves and single inhumations in a regular cemetery. An intraindividual sampling strategy was applied, taking 1) a sample of bone tissue to reflect the long-time dietary average from adulthood and 2) a sample of tooth dentine (lower part of M1 root) to reflect the childhood diet.
Carbon and nitrogen isotopic values of the studied dataset are typical for a terrestrial, predominantly C3-based diet with variable proportions of animal products. The results are further analysed and discuss i) whether the dietary habits in earlier life predisposed the individual to higher mortality risk from both famine and plague, and ii) whether the socio-economic composition of the buried population changed during the mortality crises.
This study was supported by Czech Science Foundation (21-09637S), Ministry of Culture (DKRVO 2019-2023/7.II.d, 00023272) and Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (OP RDE CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000728).
Keywords:
stable isotopes, intra-individual sampling, mortality crisis, Middle Ages
Format:
Poster presentation
Main authors:
Sylva Drtikolová Kaupová2
Co-author:
Jan Frolík1
Ivo Světlík1
Petr Velemínský2
Hana Brzobohatá1
Affiliations:
1 Czech Academy of Sciences
2 National Museum
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