Brief and precarious lives: Infant mortality in contrasting sites from medieval and post-medieval England (AD 850-1859)

Research in the area of physical anthropology reported from University of Reading
13 November 2007
Life Science Weekly


"This study compares the infant mortality profiles of 128 infants from two urban and two rural cemetery sites in medieval U.K. (see also Physical Anthropology). The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of urbanization and industrialization in terms of endogenous or exogenous causes of death," scientists writing in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology report.

"In order to undertake this analysis, two different methods of estimating gestational age from long bone lengths were used: a traditional regression method and a Bayesian method. The regression method tended to produce more marked peaks at 38 weeks, while the Bayesian method produced a broader range of ages and were more comparable with the expected ''natural'' mortality profiles. At all the sites, neonatal mortality (28-40 weeks) outweighed post-neonatal mortality (41-48 weeks) with rural Raunds Furnells in Northamptonshire, showing the highest number of neonatal deaths and post-medieval Spitalfields, London, showing a greater proportion of deaths due to exogenous or environmental factors," wrote M.E. Lewis and colleagues, University of Reading.

The researchers concluded: "Of the four sites under study, Wharram Percy in Yorkshire showed the most convincing ''natural'' infant mortality profile, suggesting the inclusion of all births (i.e., stillbirths and unbaptised infants)."

Lewis and colleagues published their study in American Journal of Physical Anthropology (Brief and precarious lives: Infant mortality in contrasting sites from medieval and post-medieval England (AD 850-1859). American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2007;134(1):117-129).

Additional information can be obtained by contacting M.E. Lewis, University of Reading, Dept. of Archaeol, School Human & Environmental Studies, Reading RG6 6AB, Berks, UK.

The publisher of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology can be contacted at: Wiley-Liss, Division John Wiley & Sons Inc., 111 River St., Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA.