Health Status of the Inhabitants of the Medieval Village and Town in Greater Poland

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Life and Death in Medieval Central Europe" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Studying living conditions of any population in the past using indirect indicators such as skeletal lesions is challenging, as their occurrence can be connected and influenced by different factors such as individuals’ immune systems. However, porous skeletal lesions (porotic hyperostosis, cribra orbitalia), and linear enamel hypoplasias (LEH), have extensively been used as nonspecific indicators of health conditions in past populations. Such indicators of stress are often associated with nutritional deficiencies, anemias, parasite infections, or chronic disorders. The aim of the study is to describe the health status of the inhabitants of medieval villages and towns from similar periods and environments (medieval settlements from Greater Poland). This study examines human remains from the town Dzwonowo (fourteenth–eighteenth centuries), and the village Gać (fourteenth–sixteenth centuries), both vanished settlements discovered within the Zielonka Forest in Poland. Individuals included in the study were examined macroscopically for the occurrence of the aforementioned porous skeletal lesions and LEH. Additionally, the severity of cribra orbitalia in particular was evaluated. Paleopathological data were then comapared between sexes, age-at-death categories, and between the two sites. Our results contribute to the narrative of population-level and individual-level health and nutrition during the Late Medieval and post-Medieval periods in Greater Poland.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Life and Death in Medieval Central Europe   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40185.0