Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-5xszh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T10:49:20.693Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Isotopes and individuals: diet and mobility among the medieval Bishops of Whithorn

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Gundula Müldner
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box 227, Reading RG6 6AB, UK (Email: g.h.mueldner@reading.ac.uk)
Janet Montgomery
Affiliation:
Division of Archaeological, Geographical and Environmental Sciences, School of Life Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford BD7 1DP, UK
Gordon Cook
Affiliation:
Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, Rankine Avenue, Scottish Enterprise Technology Park, East Kilbride G75 OQF, UK
Rob Ellam
Affiliation:
Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, Rankine Avenue, Scottish Enterprise Technology Park, East Kilbride G75 OQF, UK
Andrew Gledhill
Affiliation:
Division of Archaeological, Geographical and Environmental Sciences, School of Life Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford BD7 1DP, UK
Chris Lowe
Affiliation:
Headland Archaeology (UK) Ltd, 13 Jane Street, Edinburgh EH6 5HE, UK

Abstract

Stable isotopes get personal in this analysis of burials at a medieval cathedral. Compared with the local meat-eating rank and file, those people identified as bishops consumed significantly more fish and were incomers from the east. These results, while not so surprising historically, lend much increased confidence that isotope analysis can successfully read the status and mobility of individuals in a cemetery.

Type
Method
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ambrose, S. H. 1993. Isotopic analysis of paleodiets: methodological and interpretive considerations, in Sandford, M. K. (ed.) Investigations of ancient human tissue: chemical analyses in anthropology: 59130. Langthorne: Gordon & Breach.Google Scholar
Barrell, A. D. M. 2000. Medieval Scotland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, J. H., Locker, A. M. & Roberts, C. M.. 2004. ‘Dark Age Economics’ revisited: the English fish bone evidence AD 600-1600. Antiquity 78: 618–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bentley, R. A. 2006. Strontium isotopes from the Earth to the archaeological skeleton: a review. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 13: 135–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biavati, M. J. 2006. Cleft palate. eMedicine: the continually updated clinical reference. http://www.emedicine.com/ent/topic136.htm (accessed 27/10/2008).Google Scholar
Britton, K., Müldner, G. & Bell, M.. 2008. Stable isotope evidence for salt-marsh grazing in the Bronze Age Severn Estuary, UK: implications for palaeodietary analysis at coastal sites. Journal of Archaeological Science 35: 2111–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowen, G. J. & Wilkinson, B.. 2002. Spatial distribution of δ18 O in meteoric precipitation. Geology 30: 315–18.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
British Geological Survey. 1977. Quaternary map of the United Kingdom North (1st edition). Southampton: Ordnance Survey/NERC.Google Scholar
British Geological Survey. 2001. Geological map of the United Kingdom, North Sheet (4th edition). Southampton: Ordnance Survey/NERC.Google Scholar
Brown, T. A., Nelson, D. E., Vogel, J. S. & Southon, J. R.. 1988. Improved collagen extraction by modified Longin method. Radiocarbon 30: 171–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bryant, J. D. & Froelich, P. N.. 1995. A model of oxygen isotope fractionation in body water of large mammals. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 59: 4523–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Capo, R. C., Stewart, B. W. & Chadwick, O. A.. 1998. Strontium isotopes as tracers of ecosystems processes: theories and methods. Geoderma 82: 197225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colgrave, B. & Mynors, R.A.B. (ed. & trans.). 1979. Bede's ecclesiastical history of the English people. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Dansgaard, W. 1964. Stable isotopes in precipitation. Tellus 16: 466–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darling, W. G. & Talbot, J. C.. 2003. The O & H stable isotopic composition of fresh waters in the British Isles. 1: Rainfall. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 7: 163–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darling, W. G., Bath, A. H. & Talbot, J. C.. 2003. The O & H stable isotopic composition of fresh waters in the British Isles. 2: Surface waters and groundwater. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 7: 183–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dyer, C. 1998. Standards of living in the later Middle Ages. Social change in England c. 1200-1520 (revised edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Evans, J. A. & Tatham, S.. 2004. Defining ‘local signature’ in terms of Sr isotope composition using a tenth-twelfth century Anglo-Saxon population living on a Jurassic clay-carbonate terrain, Rutland, UK, in Pye, K. & Croft, D. J. (ed.) Forensic geoscience: principles, techniques and applications (Geological Society Special Publication 232): 237–48. London: The Geological Society.Google Scholar
Fraser, J. E. 2002. Northumbrian Whithorn and the making of St Ninian. Innes Review 53: 4059.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilchrist, R. & Sloane, B.. 2005. Requiem: the medieval monastic cemetery in Britain. London: Museum of London Archaeology Service.Google Scholar
Harvey, B. 1995. Living and dying in England 1100-1540. The monastic experience. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hill, P. 1997. Whithorn and St Ninian. The excavation of a monastic town 1984-91. Stroud: Whithorn Trust/Sutton Publishing.Google Scholar
Longinelli, A. 1984. Oxygen isotopes in mammal bone phosphate: a new tool for palaeohydrological and palaeoclimatological research. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 48: 385–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowe, C. E. (ed.) 2009. Clothing for the Soul Divine: burials at the tomb of St Ninian. Excavations at Whithorn Priory, 1957-67 (Historic Scotland Archaeology Report 3). Edinburgh: Historic Scotland.Google Scholar
Mays, S. A. 1997. Carbon stable isotope ratios in mediaeval and later human skeletons from northern England. Journal of Archaeological Science 24: 561–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McComish, J. M. & Petts, D.. 2008. Fey Field, Whithorn. York Archaeological Trust. http://www.iadb.co.uk/yat/publish.htm?PUB=58 (accessed 14/10/2008).Google Scholar
McCrea, J. M. 1950. On the isotopic chemistry of carbonates and a paleotemperature scale. Journal of Chemical Physics 18: 849–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Metzler, I. 2006. Disability in medieval Europe: thinking about physical impairment during the High Middle Ages, c. 1100-1400. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montgomery, J. 2002. Lead and strontium isotope compositions of human dental tissues as an indicator of ancient exposure and population dynamics. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Bradford.Google Scholar
Montgomery, J., Evans, J. A. & Neighbour, T.. 2003. Sr isotope evidence for population movement within the Hebridean Norse community of NW Scotland. Journal of Geological Research 160: 649–53.Google Scholar
Montgomery, J., Evans, J. A., Powlesland, D. & Roberts, C. A.. 2005. Continuity and colonization in Anglo-Saxon England? Isotope evidence for mobility, subsistence, practice, and status at West Heslerton. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 126: 123–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Montgomery, J., Evans, J. A. & Wildman, G.. 2006. 87Sr/86Sr isotope composition of bottled British mineral waters for environmental and forensic purposes. Applied Geochemistry 21: 1626–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montgomery, J., Evans, J. A. & Cooper, R. E.. 2007. Resolving archaeological populations with Sr-isotope mixing models. Applied Geochemistry 22: 1502–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Müldner, G. In press. Investigating medieval diet and society by stable isotope analysis of human bone, in Gilchrist, R. & Reynolds, A. (ed.) Fifty years of medieval archaeology. Leeds: Maney.Google Scholar
Müldner, G. & Richards, M. P.. 2007a. Diet and diversity at later medieval Fishergate: the isotopic evidence. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 134: 162–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Müldner, G. & Richards, M. P.. 2007b. Stable isotope evidence for 1500 years of human diet at the city of York, UK. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 133: 682–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Price, T. D. & Gestsdóttir, H.. 2007. The first settlers on Iceland: an isotopic approach to colonisation. Antiquity 80: 130–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sealy, J. 2001. Body tissue chemistry and palaeodiet, in Brothwell, D. R. & Pollard, A. M. (ed.) Handbook of archaeological science: 269–79. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Serjeantson, D. & Woolgar, C.M.. 2006. Fish consumption in medieval England, in Woolgar, C., Serjeantson, D. & Waldron, T. (ed.) Food in medieval England: history and archaeology: 102–30. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Southern, R. W. 1990. Western society and the church in the Middle Ages (new edition). London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Vandeginste, V., Swennan, R., Gleeson, S. A., Ellam, R. M., Osadetz, K. & Roure, F.. 2009. Thermochemical sulphate reduction in the Upper Devonian Cairn Formation of the Fairholme carbonate complex (South-west Alberta, Canadian Rockies): evidence from fluid inclusions and isotopic data. Sedimentology 56: 439–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolgar, C. 2000. Take this penance now, and afterwards the fare will improve: seafood and late medieval diet, in Starkey, D. J., Reid, C. & Ashcroft, N. (ed.) England's sea fisheries: the commercial sea fisheries of England and Wales since 1300: 3644. London: Chatham.Google Scholar
Wright, L. E. & Schwarcz, H. P.. 1998. Stable carbon and oxygen isotopes in human tooth enamel: identifying breastfeeding and weaning in prehistory. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 106: 118.3.0.CO;2-W>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yeoman, P. 1999. Pilgrimage in medieval Scotland. London: Batsford.Google Scholar