Reconstructing relationships among mortality, status, and gender at the Medieval Gilbertine Priory of St. Andrew, Fishergate, York

Abstract

The varied relationships among status, gender, and mortality are complex, historically produced phenomena that shape people's lives and deaths in socially meaningful ways. Paleodemographic analysis coupled with acute sensitivity to site-specific context has the potential to move us toward a greater understanding of these experiences in the past. After considering the potential effects of migration and fertility on the age-at-death profiles of adult individuals interred at the Gilbertine Priory of St. Andrew, Fishergate, York (n = 200), it is asserted that these profiles primarily reveal expected and unexpected relationships among status, gender, and mortality in this Medieval context. Collectively, the long lives of religious-status males compared to other composite and gendered status groups suggest that they experienced a relatively comfortable existence despite periodic complaints of destitution. The postulated demographic advantage of high-status males did not materialize in the analysis, and a reevaluation of the skeletal evidence indicates that nearly 20% of these individuals died violently. Unexpectedly, moderate-status females shared a mortality profile similar to that of religious-status males and retained a demographic advantage over all other secular status groups. In contrast to the experiences of moderate-status females, low-status females had, on average, the shortest lives at St. Andrew's. This pattern is intimately linked to their restriction from crucial social and economic resources, and provides further evidence of their marginalization in York's wage-labor economy. Overall, these relationships suggest that traditional, highly stratified and gendered notions of Medieval status and mortality are not adequate for understanding the intricacies of everyday life and death at St. Andrew's.

Prevalence and etiology of acquired anemia in Medieval York, England

“…Although low-status men inhabited a low rung on the ladder of health, low-status women, and especially single women, comprised the most disadvantaged group in Medieval York society in general and at St. Andrew's in particular. The high prevalence of anemia found in lowstatus women comprises only one axis of the overarching social, economic, and health disparities faced by these women as they lived their daily lives (Sullivan, 2003). High physiological demands for iron and folic acid, poor diets, and repeated, perhaps chronic, exposure to pathogens and parasites created conditions where anemia had the potential to thrive in all of its intersecting forms.…”

“…As for interpretations of lesion distribution, the robust contextual evidence garnered to support interpretations of anemia prevalence at St. Andrew's strongly suggests that being female or of low status is associated with a higher risk of developing anemia due to increased physiological demands and/or degraded dietary and living contexts. As such, increased lesion prevalence cannot meaningfully be interpreted as evidence that these groups enjoyed an increased ability to respond to and successfully overcome biological insults when compared to either men or their higher-status peers (see also Sullivan, 2003). Wood et al (1992) provide us with a valuable lens through which we can critically view our own work, but this work must, in the end, continue to be founded on concrete understandings of past lifeways built through archaeological, historical, and ethnographic analyses.…”

“…Applying the collective criteria of space and material culture, individuals buried in materially rich areas in the highly sacred spaces of the north transept chapel, cloister garth, east cloister alley, and crossing retained the highest secular status, followed by moderate-status individuals buried in generally less elaborate graves in the more secularized space of the nave. Lastly, low-status individuals with the poorest graves and the least prestigious spatial positions were buried in the south cemetery (Sullivan, 2003).…”

Urban and rural differences in mortality and causes of death in historical Poland

“…More commonly, however, greater morbidity and greater mortality were observed in urban centers than in rural villages in the past (Kula, 1983;Lewis, 2002;Lewis et al, 1995;Roberts and Lewis, 2002). Furthermore, there is a relation-ship between various measures of health and mortality and socioeconomic status: higher socioeconomic status relates to better health and lower mortality (Robb et al, 2001;Sullivan, 2004). Some differences in the health index were observed according to size of the resident community: in towns or cities, this index was the lowest (Steckel et al, 2002).…”

New Directions in Bioarchaeology: Recent Contributions to the Study of Human Social Identities

“…We argue that bioarchaeology would benefit from a continued focus on the individual in studies of health and disease, and from an increased awareness of the implications of disease, impairment, and disability in our interpretations. Bioarchaeological research on health and disease has much to offer identity studies, including the health effects of occupational , status ) and/or gender identities (Sullivan 2004), and the role of impairment in determining other identities. Future bioarchaeological work can use contextualized skeletal and dental data to reconstruct how an individual's social identity changed, or was sustained, after undergoing debilitating or disfiguring diseases.…”