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

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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.