11th BABAO 2013 Conference Poster Abstract Annamaria Diana Disease and violence among Romanian populations during the Little Ice Age: effects of an everlasting winter In 1939 the geographer F. Matthes introduced the expression “Little Ice Age” into the academic vocabulary, describing the time period between the XIV and the XIX centuries, seen as a time of hardships for populations across Europe, with rain and ice as lords of the landscape, cold winters and wet summers. The purpose of the present paper is twofold: 1) it aims to show how osteo-archaeological research can add further information to our knowledge of this phenomenon and historical period, discussing whether this substantial climate change does reflect in the age-at-death profiles and the health status of skeletal populations and 2) it will present a number of relevant case studies, as an illustration for the first research question. The chosen Medieval skeletal assemblages are representative for two different chronological and geographical contexts from Romania. The first group (c. 300 individuals) includes skeletal remains from two cemeteries excavated in the heart of Bucharest (south-eastern Romania), and dated to the XV-XVIII centuries. The second assemblage (c. 300 individuals), dating back to the XII-XVII centuries, has been uncovered during the on-going excavation of the Black Church in Braşov (central Romania, Transylvania). For methodological purposes certain “climate change markers” have been proposed by the present author in order to identify the effects of climate change on human populations. Their presence would point towards higher mortality rates, a decrease in population stature, higher levels of physical stress, a greater prevalence of metabolic and infectious diseases and an increase of the violent behaviour.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 22:12:04 +0000
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