The study of lead impact and usage in England during the Medieval period

该项目将侧重于中世纪时期铅使用对人类健康影响的研究不足。铅是一种剧毒金属，但至少从古典时期开始，铅就被广泛用于家居用品、工艺品和医药中。这项跨学科的分析将把物质文化、文本和人类遗骸联系起来，以确定铅的潜在来源和对不同地区人口和社会阶层的影响。将通过广泛的文献搜索，评估日常家居用品中铅的存在以及铅可能是如何被摄入的，例如从釉料、管道、锡器和其他含铅物品中。医学食谱、诗歌和个人记录等文本证据也将纳入这项研究。在确定了铅污染的来源后，我将检查铅中毒的骨骼证据。在这一领域发表的工作很少，而且大多数早于新方法的发展(例如Waldron，1973,1979,1983)。最近的工作着眼于罗马时期(例如，Montgomery等人，2010年)，并侧重于历史和牙齿化学，而不是骨骼指标。本论文将独特地结合物质文化和骨骼数据的方面来评估中世纪时期铅对健康的影响。骨骼遗骸将来自城镇和农村地区的墓地，包括主要的采矿区--山顶地区，以比较产地与农村和城市的铅消耗点，以及其他地方的含铅商品。

This project will focus on the understudied human health impact of lead use in the Medieval period. Lead (Pb) is a highly toxic metal, yet was widely used in household goods, artefacts and medicines from at least the Classical period onwards. This interdisciplinary analysis will link material culture, texts and human remains to determine the potential sources and impacts of lead on different regional populations and strata of society.Impact via material culture will be assessed through an extensive literature search of the presence of lead in everyday household objects and how it may have been ingested, e.g. from glazes, piping, pewter, and other lead-based objects. Textual evidence such as medical recipes, poems and personal records will also be incorporated into this study. Following the identification of sources of lead pollution, I will then examine skeletal evidence of lead poisoning. Very little work has been published in this area, and most predates the development of new methodologies (e.g. Waldron, 1973, 1979, 1983). More recent work has looked at the Roman period (e.g. Montgomery et al., 2010) and has focussed on history and tooth chemistry rather than skeletal indicators. This thesis will uniquelycombine aspects of material culture and skeletal data to assess the impact of lead on health in the Medieval period. Skeletal remains will be sourced from cemeteries in towns and rural areas, including the Peak District - a key mining region - to compare a source locality with rural and urban consumptionpoints of goods containing lead beyond it.