Physical Effects of Social Status in Early Medieval Thuringia: A Bioarchaeological Investigation of Health and Disease among Individuals from the Merovingian Cemetery of Großvargula, Germany

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Merovingian society (450–751 CE) was strongly stratified with differences in social standing being written in law and affecting many aspects of life, such as occupation and access to material, nutritional, and medical resources. How did these status differences become embodied in Early Medieval Thuringia? This study explores the cumulative effect of status-based lifestyle factors onto a variety of health indicators visible in the human skeleton based on a sample of about 60 individuals from the cemetery of Großvargula in Thuringia, Germany. The cemetery was excavated from 2019 to 2020, and dates to the Merovingian period. During this time, status differences were indicated by grave goods, which is expressed in Großvargula by a pronounced variation in both quantity and quality of burial items ranging from simple pottery to elaborate jewelry and swords, facilitating a comparison between individuals of higher and lower social status. Among the health indicators included in the comparison are reconstructed body height, evidence of hematopoietic and metabolic disease (anemia, scurvy, rickets/osteomalacia), nonspecific indicators of stress (enamel hypoplasia, periosteal reactions, growth arrest lines), skeletal trauma, and osteoarthritis. The presentation will show drawings of human remains, which will be based on photographs and X-rays from European skeletal specimens.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37373.0