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High-Resolution Dating of a Medieval Multiple Grave

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2018

Helene Agerskov Rose Open the ORCID record for Helene Agerskov Rose [Opens in a new window] ,
John Meadows  and
Mikael Bjerregaard
Helene Agerskov Rose*
Affiliation:
Center for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology, Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen, Schlossinsel 1, Schloss Gottorf, D-24837 Schleswig, Germany
John Meadows
Affiliation:
Center for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology, Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen, Schlossinsel 1, Schloss Gottorf, D-24837 Schleswig, Germany
Mikael Bjerregaard
Affiliation:
Odense City Museums, Archaeology, Overgade 48, DK-5000 Odense C, Denmark
*
*Corresponding author. Email: Helene.rose@schloss-gottorf.de.
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Abstract

Multiple burial in medieval burial grounds are often interpreted as a result of disease, but it is difficult to test such hypotheses, as most acute infectious diseases leave no visible evidence on skeletal material. Scientific dating can potentially associate multiple burials with historically documented epidemics, but the precision required to exclude alternative explanations would normally be attainable only by dendrochronology. Here, we argue that by combining archaeological, osteological and paleodiet research in a Bayesian framework, we can exploit differences in dietary reservoir effects to refine the dates of multiple burials, and potentially date such events to within a range of <20 years. We present new radiocarbon (14C) and stable isotope (δ13C, δ15N) results from a medieval multiple grave at St Alban’s Odense, on the island of Funen in central Denmark. We show the ca. 150-yr spread in 14C ages of the five juveniles is compatible with differences in the amount of fish they consumed. Our chronological model, which combines marine reservoir effect correction with calendar age offsets based on osteological evidence, dates the multiple burial to cal AD 1425–1445 (95% probability), an interval in which two plague epidemics took place in Denmark.

Keywords

Bayesian chronological modelingmarine reservoir effectmedievalmultiple burialpaleodiet
Type
Methodological Advances
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 60 , Special Issue 5: 2nd Radiocarbon in the Environment Conference, Debrecen, Hungary, July 3–7, 2017 Part 2 of 2 and Radiocarbon & Diet 2 International Conference Aarhus, Denmark, June 20–23, 2017 , October 2018 , pp. 1547 - 1559
Copyright
© 2018 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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Footnotes

Selected Papers from the 2nd International Radiocarbon and Diet Conference: Aquatic Food Resources and Reservoir Effects, 20–23 June 2017, Aarhus, Denmark

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