SGER: Subadult Mortality and Life History Evolution in Medieval Denmark: A Molecular Approach

University Of Utah, Salt Lake City UT

Investigators

Abstract

Mortality patterns in early agrarian populations indicate that adult males had higher survivorship than adult females, possibly as a result of increased female mortality associated with childbirth. Two problems have stood in the way of testing this hypothesis: 1) lack of knowledge about sex differences in mortality prior to reproduction, and 2) uncertainty regarding the accuracy of distinguishing male from female skeletons. The characteristics used to determine sex of skeletons are adult secondary sex characteristics and are not reliable for sexing subadult skeletons. We propose to extract ancient DNA from skeletons and adapt newly developed molecular methods for determining sex to prehistoric samples. We will attempt to improve upon these methods and develop them into an efficient and reliable method for sexing skeletal samples. The improved methods will permit us to study sex differences in mortality among ancient subadults. Adult skeletons from Tirup, a rural Medieval cemetery in Denmark, show the same female survival disadvantage found in other early agricultural skeletal series from northern Europe. By examining subadult mortality patterns at Tirup with molecular methods, we will test the hypothesis that sex differences in adult death relate to the dangers of reproduction for early agrarian women generally. We will also provide a test of sex estimates based on bone characteristics of adults.