Godde K, DeWitte Sharon N, Beaumont Julia, Walter Brittany S, Redfern Rebecca, Bekvalac Jelena J
School of HESBS, Moreno Valley College, Moreno Valley, CA, 92551, USA.
Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado Boulder, 80309, Colorado Boulder, USA.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jul 25;15(1):27133. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-13198-7.
Crisis mortality events such as disease epidemics and famines have long had major impacts on human health and demography, and clarifying variation in susceptibility to crisis mortality is crucial for enhancing our understanding of the larger-scale phenomena of human adaptation and biological variation. Previous bioarchaeological research using data from human skeletal remains has revealed variable patterns of biological, and by inference, social determinants of vulnerability to medieval famine and plague mortality. However, such previous work did not account for missing data and the potential associated biases. For this study, we apply a novel approach integrating dietary isotope, pathological, and demographic data into multinomial logistic regression analyses of mortality differentials during famine and plague events in medieval London, while controlling for missing data. The results suggest higher risks of famine and plague mortality for males and for individuals previously exposed to stressors, and higher risks of plague (but not famine) mortality for older adults. Further, we find evidence that protein-rich diets were protective against famine and plague mortality. Our findings highlight how various biological and social factors shaped risks of mortality in medieval London, even in the context of major mortality crises, which are often assumed to be indiscriminate in nature.
诸如疾病流行和饥荒等危机死亡事件长期以来对人类健康和人口统计学产生了重大影响，而阐明危机死亡率易感性的差异对于增进我们对人类适应和生物变异等大规模现象的理解至关重要。此前利用人类骨骼遗骸数据进行的生物考古学研究揭示了中世纪饥荒和瘟疫死亡率在生物学方面以及由此推断出的社会脆弱性决定因素的不同模式。然而，此前的此类研究并未考虑缺失数据及潜在的相关偏差。在本研究中，我们采用一种新方法，将饮食同位素、病理学和人口统计学数据整合到对中世纪伦敦饥荒和瘟疫事件期间死亡率差异的多项逻辑回归分析中，同时控制缺失数据。结果表明，男性以及先前暴露于压力源的个体面临更高的饥荒和瘟疫死亡风险，而老年人面临更高的瘟疫（而非饥荒）死亡风险。此外，我们发现有证据表明富含蛋白质的饮食对饥荒和瘟疫死亡具有保护作用。我们的研究结果凸显了各种生物和社会因素如何塑造了中世纪伦敦的死亡风险，即使是在通常被认为具有无差别性质的重大死亡危机背景下。
