The Rural Rate of Survival - A bioarchaeological analysis of the medieval Tygelsjö cemetery
(2025) ARKM23 20251Historical Osteology
- Abstract
- The field of paleodemography focuses on reconstructing demographic patterns from past populations. Typically, sex and age data are collected from the target population and used for these reconstructions. Normally, the data is collected using morphological means of skeletal analysis. Morphological methods of analysis, especially estimation of age in adult individuals, have been scrutinized. Development of new methods has aimed to decrease bias and increase accuracy. The study of paleodemography is often combined with paleopathology to study the presence of disease and skeletal abnormalities, as well as being used in combination with demographic data to create a more holistic understanding of health in the past. This study set out to... (More)
- The field of paleodemography focuses on reconstructing demographic patterns from past populations. Typically, sex and age data are collected from the target population and used for these reconstructions. Normally, the data is collected using morphological means of skeletal analysis. Morphological methods of analysis, especially estimation of age in adult individuals, have been scrutinized. Development of new methods has aimed to decrease bias and increase accuracy. The study of paleodemography is often combined with paleopathology to study the presence of disease and skeletal abnormalities, as well as being used in combination with demographic data to create a more holistic understanding of health in the past. This study set out to determine the health of a rural medieval population and compare traditional methods of age estimation to modern methods of age estimation. For this, 66 adult individuals from the medieval population of Tygelsjö were analyzed and combined with results from a previous study of the juvenile individuals. The results indicated an overall health that is comparable with other rural medieval populations. Age estimation was completed using Transition Analysis 3, and the results showed a significantly increased accuracy compared to traditional methods. The TA3 showed a slight decrease in accuracy with older individuals, indicated by larger error margins. The material consisted mostly of males, and it could not be accurately dated. Since there was a fair amount of the material missing and it was not dated, the paleodemography does not show health over time, but rather a combination of all time periods. Therefore, in this case, it is not possible to determine the health as good or poor. The population does have some indication of poor health however, when compared to similar populations, it is indicated that health differed in different time periods. Overall, the results correlate with other rural communities in Scandinavia, as well as on the continent. Transition Analysis 3 was proven to be very useful for this type of material, and it gave new interesting insight as the new estimated ages were drastically different from those done in a previous study. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9224651
- author
- Haglund, Cornelia LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- ARKM23 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Medieval, Tygelsjö, Rural, Transition Analysis, Osteology, Paleodemography, Paleopathology, Bioarchaeology
- language
- English
- id
- 9224651
- date added to LUP
- 2026-04-21 13:52:12
- date last changed
- 2026-04-21 13:52:12
@misc{9224651,
abstract = {{The field of paleodemography focuses on reconstructing demographic patterns from past populations. Typically, sex and age data are collected from the target population and used for these reconstructions. Normally, the data is collected using morphological means of skeletal analysis. Morphological methods of analysis, especially estimation of age in adult individuals, have been scrutinized. Development of new methods has aimed to decrease bias and increase accuracy. The study of paleodemography is often combined with paleopathology to study the presence of disease and skeletal abnormalities, as well as being used in combination with demographic data to create a more holistic understanding of health in the past. This study set out to determine the health of a rural medieval population and compare traditional methods of age estimation to modern methods of age estimation. For this, 66 adult individuals from the medieval population of Tygelsjö were analyzed and combined with results from a previous study of the juvenile individuals. The results indicated an overall health that is comparable with other rural medieval populations. Age estimation was completed using Transition Analysis 3, and the results showed a significantly increased accuracy compared to traditional methods. The TA3 showed a slight decrease in accuracy with older individuals, indicated by larger error margins. The material consisted mostly of males, and it could not be accurately dated. Since there was a fair amount of the material missing and it was not dated, the paleodemography does not show health over time, but rather a combination of all time periods. Therefore, in this case, it is not possible to determine the health as good or poor. The population does have some indication of poor health however, when compared to similar populations, it is indicated that health differed in different time periods. Overall, the results correlate with other rural communities in Scandinavia, as well as on the continent. Transition Analysis 3 was proven to be very useful for this type of material, and it gave new interesting insight as the new estimated ages were drastically different from those done in a previous study.}},
author = {{Haglund, Cornelia}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{The Rural Rate of Survival - A bioarchaeological analysis of the medieval Tygelsjö cemetery}},
year = {{2025}},
}