AHRC-NSF MOU: Diet, Migration, and Health in the Context of Medieval Mortality Crises

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Crisis mortality, a dramatic but temporary increase in mortality rate resulting from a single factor, is an important phenomenon in many populations. This project integrates paleodemographic and isotope analyses to examine temporal changes in diet and migration at the time of the 14th-century Black Death and the interactions among diet, migration, demography, health, sex, and socioeconomic status in thecontext of the medieval mortality crises of famine and plague. This project will highlight the cultural and social aspects that affect crisis events and their outcomes. Clarifying how dietary resources were distributed in the medieval period will allow for an examination of the ways in which general resource availability in a population does not necessarily translate into widespread benefits in the face of socially-, economically-, or politically-prescribed patterns of access to those resources (Baro and Deubel, 2006; Wisner et al., 2004). This project will also contribute to an understanding of long-term changes in migration in the context of disaster and particularly the health consequences thereof. The results of thisproject can aid predictions about what might happen in future demographic crises.