Isotopic Investigations into Dietary Patterns of Early Medieval Communities in Thuringia, Germany

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.

The Early Medieval period in Central Europe was a time of pronounced socioeconomic differences, as well as sociopolitical unrest. While the former Roman infrastructure was deteriorating, the costs of importing foods and other material goods into Thuringia increased, exacerbating differences in food availability between the various sectors of society, varying with individual and/or family wealth, and increasing the dependence on locally grown food for the general population. Using carbon and nitrogen isotopic ratios from long bone collagen (largely femoral or tibial diaphyses), we investigate the relationship between diet (animal protein consumption and reliance on C3 vs C4 plants) and biocultural parameters: social status (indicated by burial goods and funerary practices), sex, and age in two Early Medieval communities from Thuringia. The sample consists of 79 individuals from Großvargula and Boilstädt, two nearby sites dating to the Merovingian period, and encompasses both males and females, as well as individuals of different ages. These cemetery sites show marked variation in the quality and quantity of burial goods among the interred individuals, suggesting a representation of different societal strata of the community, and allowing for a test of whether a higher or lower socioeconomic status affected dietary patterns within these communities.

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): 39380.0