Paleodemography of a Late Medieval Cemetery in 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.

Paleodemography is useful way of learning about the lives of people in the past, while gaining insight into their cultural and environmental conditions. The Late Middle Ages in Poland saw several cultural and climatic changes. Historical documents provide context for the elites during this period throughout the realm, but information regarding the lives of common people remains mostly a mystery. The increased demands of labor throughout the feudal system during the time no doubt would have made the lives of non-elites increasingly difficult. The cemetery of Gać in Poland (fourteenth to sixteenth century) provides an excellent opportunity to examine the lives of common, rural people using mortality data. This study examined mortality rates for 189 burials recovered during a mortuary archaeological field school. Our results show an unbiased male-to-female ratio among the individuals for which sex estimations were possible. The cemetery at Gać has a notably high child mortality rate of more than half of all burials recovered, and a particularly high mortality rate of older children. Results also show a relatively high mortality rate among adolescents and young adults. Our mortality analysis reflects the hardship of the common people during the Late Middle Ages in 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): 40232.0