Doctoral Dissertation Research: Paleodemographic Analysis of Urbanization, Famine and Mortality

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Rapid increases in population density resulting from urban expansion facilitate the transmission of infectious diseases, unsanitary living conditions, and precarious food supplies. The potential negative effects of urbanism in living populations are of considerable interest to public health experts, particularly the ways in which urban factors play a role in the development and severity of disease. Research on urbanization in the past provides temporal depth to our understanding of the consequences of urbanism. This project will examine patterns of health and diet in medieval London (c. 1120-1539) to investigate the relationship between pathology and nutrition in the context of urbanization. Paleodemographic and biochemical analyses of skeletal samples from medieval England will be used to investigate urbanization and famine, combining approaches in a unique way that will advance research in biological anthropology. The project will be generally informative about environmental pressures that affect human health and adaptability to changing environments. Broader impacts include training of a female graduate student, public science outreach efforts, and development of international collaborations.This 12-month dissertation project integrates paleodemographic (hazard analysis) and biochemical (stable isotope analysis) approaches to examine the health and diet of inhabitants in medieval London and to investigate the interaction of pathology and nutrition on mortality during urbanization and incidences of famine. Skeletal data from the urban St. Mary Spital cemetery and rural Barton-upon-Humber cemetery will be analyzed to determine how morbidity and mortality patterns in medieval London changed over time as a result of increased urbanization; evaluate how temporal changes in morbidity and mortality of medieval London compare to a contemporaneous rural population; investigate the relationship between diet and health during the transition to a more urban environment by integrating paleodemographic approaches with stable isotope analysis; and examine how potential biochemical markers of famine are manifested in medieval London using stable isotope analysis, including an innovative incremental dentine analysis method.