Non‐specific indicators of stress and their association with age at death in Medieval York: Using stature and vertebral neural canal size to examine the effects of stress occurring during different periods of development

Abstract

Selective mortality can occur towards individuals who survive episodes of physiological stress, such as disease and malnutrition, during development. The skeletal elements affected depend on the timing of these stressful episodes. Studying multiple non‐specific indicators of stress can show which periods of development were affected and whether certain periods can be linked with selective mortality. To examine this method a preliminary study of 61 adult individuals from the Medieval population of Fishergate House, York was undertaken to examine small vertebral neural canal size and reduced adult stature. Previous studies have shown that selective mortality occurs towards individuals who display these non‐specific indicators of stress. Statistical analysis showed that small transverse neural canal diameter was significantly associated with early adult mortality for males and females and there was evidence of selective mortality towards females with reduced stature. This suggests that individuals who died in early adulthood experienced health insults during late childhood which stunted VNC growth but males in particular were not significantly affected by health insults after this age as they achieved a normal adult stature. Therefore it appears that health insults which occurred during late childhood had a greater influence on adult health in the Fishergate House population. This method could be expanded to provide more detailed information by using a greater variety of non‐specific indicators of stress which will allow more specific periods of development to be investigated. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.