Research master thesis | Archaeology (research) (MA/MSc)
open access
2024-01-31T00:00:00Z
Urbanization and urban living not only reshaped the social, cultural, political, and economical aspects of European societies, but also had a great impact on people’s health. These effects can be...Show moreUrbanization and urban living not only reshaped the social, cultural, political, and economical aspects of European societies, but also had a great impact on people’s health. These effects can be observed in the archaeological record through the analysis of skeletal remains from urban sites by comparing them to their rural counterparts. Although multiple studies have focused on investigating the effects of urbanization and urban living, few have researched the impact of urban living on infants, children, and maternal health. Therefore, this research focuses on assessing the effects of urban living in infant and maternal health during post medieval times in the Netherlands through the comparison of oral stress indicators from a rural (Middenbeemster) and an urban (Arnhem) collection of post-medieval Dutch non-adults and adults. To do so, frequencies and age-at-formation of linear enamel hypoplasia, as well as frequency of dental caries were recorded and analyzed for permanent and deciduous teeth, using age-categorical data to compare them between rural and urban individuals. The results from this research demonstrate that urban living had a negative impact on infant and maternal health, as found from the dental markers associated to the prenatal period. In addition, this research has shown that analyzing dental caries in deciduous teeth can demonstrate the maternal-infant relationship after birth, and that dental caries can be used as a proxy to determine frailty and resiliency of non-adult individuals.Show less
The purpose of my thesis is to research how individuals from the lower class with severe and visible disabilities were cared for during the Early modern period in the Dutch city of Arnhem. To be...Show moreThe purpose of my thesis is to research how individuals from the lower class with severe and visible disabilities were cared for during the Early modern period in the Dutch city of Arnhem. To be able to say something about care for these individuals I use historic literature, which functions as a historical framework, and I apply a bioarchaeological method known as the Index of Care, in which pathology found on skeletal remains form an important source of information. I will use pathology found on three skeletal individuals, from Arnhem, to say something about the living conditions of these people and what their quality of life might have looked like considering their disability. Based on the historic literature I provide the reader with an image of what care might have looked like for these individuals. And I research what this says about Arnhem’s population of the time and what their perspective was on their disabled and sick community. Arnhem would have different facilities in which people could be provided with care. Guesthouses played a major role in the caring for the city’s poor, sick and disabled community. In these guesthouses people could stay for a certain period of time up until a lifetime, depending on the guesthouses’ regulations. The church offered food, prayers and housing (also through guesthouses) to those in need as well. Additionally there were physicians and apothecaries that took care of the medical aspects of care for those who could afford it. However we must not forget that most of the disabled and sick individuals were most likely cared for by their relatives. The three individuals I analysed, must all have been cared for, for a longer period of time, most likely till their death. Based on these results and the historic framework, it is known that the lower class of Arnhem that was harshly disabled or sick would have been able to receive care if they needed to, and that this was provided by parties from different angles of society such as the church, the individual’s own social circle and the local guesthouses. This means that the early modern Arnhem cared for their disabled and sick population and that these people were seen as individuals that are entitled to housing, food a normal live and (medical)-care.Show less
This research uses the disease of osteoarthritis in order to investigate the activity patterns of a rural and an urban environment in the Netherlands during the post-medieval period. It produced...Show moreThis research uses the disease of osteoarthritis in order to investigate the activity patterns of a rural and an urban environment in the Netherlands during the post-medieval period. It produced two datasets with matching criteria obtained from the skeletal assemblages of the heavily researched rural site of Middenbeemster and the relatively new urban site of Arnhem. Historical literature is combined with osteoarthritis prevalence give a more clear and detailed image of past activity patterns. This literature has provided this research with the knowledge that Middenbeemster was a dairy farming community, while Arnhem was a city with a focus on the beer brewing industry. Different markers on the bones associated with osteoarthritis resulted in differences in osteoarthritis prevalence. This differences were not only investigated within the environments but also between the environments. In the urban environment a sexual division of labour was seen, while in the rural environment men and women performed similar strenuous activities. Besides this, it is evident that industrial city life was more strenuous on the bodies of individuals than farming life was during the post-medieval period in the Netherlands.Show less
