This study aims to use the presence and severity of dental disease as a mechanism to assess and infer upon any potential dietary differences between the socio-economic classes of Post-Medieval...Show moreThis study aims to use the presence and severity of dental disease as a mechanism to assess and infer upon any potential dietary differences between the socio-economic classes of Post-Medieval Eindhoven. The identification of socio-economic status was calculated from burial location, wherein those interred within church walls were deemed to be of high status, whereas those interred within the cemetery were supposed to be of a lower socio-economic status. In terms of the history of the city of Eindhoven and Sint-Catharinakerk, in particular, suffer from a lack of archival evidence through a series of fires and sacking meaning that life within Medieval and post-Medieval Eindhoven is largely unknown. For the completion of this study, 45 individuals were analysis for their presence and severity of carious lesions, dental calculus and periodontal disease. With any potential pathological differences between the burial classes, and subsequently the inferred socio-economic classes being statistically analysed using both z and Somers’d tests. These results demonstrated that significant differences were found within the severity of dental calculus, with the higher status population possessing a higher presence and severity than the lower status population. Whereas, the presence and severity of periodontal disease and carious lesions presented no significant differences. The results and associated differences, place suspicion onto many of the conclusions collected from the historical record, particularly within the assumptions of meat and sugar consumption across the higher and lower status communities. Whereas as a whole, this study does suggest that the diet of the elites reflected a more mixed hybridised diet, which was contrasted by the lower status diet which is likely to have been dominated by traditional agrarian foods such as grains and cereals. This trend is likely to have been exaggerated within periods strife with the wealth and connections of higher status population offering greater resistance, when compared to the lower status population. But ultimately, this is a story of balancing multiple factors, with external factors such as oral hygiene, possessing profound limiting and causing impacts on the examined pathological conditions. Thusly outlining that it is vital that the effects of these on a past population must be considered and better understood, if further research must be undertaken.Show less
Nutritional and socio-economic status are often considered as being closely related. In skeletal collections, these forms of status are studied using non-specific stress indicators. This research...Show moreNutritional and socio-economic status are often considered as being closely related. In skeletal collections, these forms of status are studied using non-specific stress indicators. This research focusses on one nutritional status. Pelvic inlet morphology is repeatedly suggested to be a good proxy for nutritional status, but this never has been systematically analysed. This thesis examines pelvic inlet morphology together with other indicators, namely cribra orbitalia and maximum femoral length for two samples of different socio-economic status. This to verify the usefulness of the shape of the pelvic inlet as a nutritional status indicator. This research shows that the relationships between the different indicators are not significant, that they differ between subsamples and that they do not all follow the expected pattern. The correlations between pelvic morphology and cribra orbitalia, and between pelvic morphology and maximal femoral length, suggest that if pelvic morphology is influenced by periods of stress, it results of different causes of stress or different periods of stress than the other indicators, since most correlations are quite low and some of them contradict each other within subsamples. Furthermore, sex is found to influence individual measurements of the pelvis, but it has no real effect on the pelvic inlet index. Lastly, the individuals from Arnhem seem to have a slightly lower nutritional status than those from Zwolle, but differences are not pronounced. Even though the results are not significant and confounding factors are numerous, this is the first study that explores pelvic measurements in relation to nutrition for the Northern Europe and the first to provide pelvic data for Dutch samples.Show less
