AIA Lecturer: Sharon N. DeWitte

Examination of health trends in the context of industrialization has primarily focused on national-level trends or urban contexts, which may mask considerable variation within and between populations. Uncovering that variation is crucially important for anthropological considerations of how economics, wealth, demographic characteristics, and other factors shape health at the individual and population levels. In an effort to contribute to an understanding of health in rural and urban communities at the time of industrialization, Dr. DeWitte’s collaborative research uses census mortality records from rural Madison County, NY and the city of Syracuse, NY (Onondaga County) (1850-1880). This was a time when farming, the economic base of Madison Co, was becoming commercialized and industrialization was impacting the wider region. Dr. DeWitte will focus on trends in survivorship and proportionate mortality in Madison Co., the effect of marital status on health, and patterns of sex differences in mortality in rural vs. urban contexts.

Bioarchaeological work has revealed evidence of declines in health prior to the mid-14th century Black Death in London, variation in risk of death with respect to frailty during the epidemic, and improvements in health afterwards. This raises questions regarding underlying mechanisms driving these apparent trends in health in the context of increasing social inequalities, urbanization, and repeated famines and plague epidemics. One possibility is that health improved after the epidemic because of the migration of healthy people into London. Studies in modern populations have documented a “healthy migrant effect”, i.e., migrants are a sub-population of healthy individuals and thus, at least temporarily, exhibit better health on average than individuals in their sending and receiving populations. Dr. DeWitte will present findings, using data from London cemeteries, regarding differences in survivorship, as a proxy for health, between individuals who were local to London vs. those who were non-local across the medieval period (c. 1000-1540). The findings suggests that the health of migrants to London, in general, was better than that of long-term inhabitants of the city throughout the medieval period, and that migrants experienced superior childhood growth conditions prior to migrating.

Numerous studies have revealed links between prenatal/early-life stress and elevated morbidity and risks of mortality later in life. Repeated subsistence crises in medieval England might have created adverse growth conditions for children that affected health across their lifespans. Dr. DeWitte will discuss her research using stable isotopic, demographic, and paleopathological data from human skeletal remains to assess associations between early-life nutritional stress and health outcomes before, during, and after the Black Death in London and rural Lincolnshire c. 1000-1540 CE. The findings suggest that survivors of early-life nutritional stress were resilient with respect to causes of death in childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. Ultimately, however, early-life nutritional stress was associated with elevated mortality in middle and late adulthood in the medieval period, consistent with models from developmental biology. The findings also reveal that the prevalence of nutritional stress increased before the Black Death and decreased afterwards. Understanding the long-term consequences of early-life nutritional stress can offer insights on the health trajectories of historical populations.

In the 14th-century, Afro-Eurasia was struck by a devastating pandemic of bubonic plague, now often called the Black Death, that killed an estimated 30-60% of some affected populations. Dr. DeWitte will discuss her bioarchaeological research, focusing on the skeletal remains of people who died before, during, and after the Black Death in London, England. This work aims to clarify the biosocial factors that shaped vulnerability to historical plague mortality and deepen the temporal scope of understanding of the syndemic interactions that shape epidemic disease experiences and outcomes. Analysis of demographic trends before and after the Black Death in London has revealed evidence of declines in life expectancies and, by inference, health for people before the Black Death, but improvements in health afterwards. Examination of patterns of skeletal indicators of stress reveal differences between males and females, which might reflect variation in sensitivity to stressors or differences in dietary resources in the aftermath of the Black Death. Dr. DeWitte will highlight future directions in medieval plague bioarchaeology, including analyses of the potential effects of migration on population-level patterns of health in the context of famine and plague.