These results suggest that the effects of urbanisation in medieval England varied by sex. Deleterious conditions associated with urbanisation in London were hazardous for adults, particularly females who may have migrated into London from rural areas for labour opportunities.

Objectives: In the 14th century AD, medieval Europe was severely affected by the Great European Famine as well as repeated bouts of disease, including the Black Death, causing major demographic shifts. This high volatility led to increased mobility and migration due to new labor and economic opportunities, as evidenced by documentary and stable isotope data. This study uses ancient DNA (aDNA) isolated from skeletal remains to examine whether evidence for largescale population movement can be gleaned from the complete mitochondrial genomes of 264 medieval individuals from England (London) and Denmark.Materials and Methods: Using a novel library-conserving approach to targeted capture, we recovered 264 full mitochondrial genomes from the petrous portion of the temporal bones and teeth and compared genetic diversity across the medieval period within and between English (London) and Danish populations and with contemporary populations through population pairwise Φ ST analysis.Results: We find no evidence of significant differences in genetic diversity spatially or temporally in our dataset, yet there is a high degree of haplotype diversity in our medieval samples with little exact sequence sharing.Discussion: The mitochondrial genomes of both medieval Londoners and medieval Danes suggest high mitochondrial diversity before, during and after the Black Death. While our mitochondrial genomic data lack geographically correlated signals, these data could be the result of high, continual female migration before and after the Black Death or may simply indicate a large

Objectives: We compared δ 15 N and δ 13 C values from bone and dentine collagen profiles of individuals interred in famine-related and attritional burials to evaluate whether individuals in medieval London who experienced nutritional stress exhibit enriched nitrogen in bone and tooth tissue. Dentine profiles were evaluated to identify patterns that may be indicative of famine during childhood and were compared with the age of enamel hypoplasia (EH) formation to assess whether isotopic patterns of undernutrition coincide with the timing of physiological stress.Materials and Methods: δ 15 N and δ 13 C isotope ratios of bone collagen were obtained from individuals (n = 128) interred in attritional and famine burials from a medieval London cemetery (c. 1120-1539). Temporal sequences of δ 15 N and δ 13 C isotope profiles for incrementally forming dentine collagen were obtained from a subset of these individuals (n = 21).Results: Results indicate that individuals from attritional graves exhibit significantly higher δ 15 N values but no significant differences were found between burial types for the sexes. Analyses of dentine profiles reveal that a lower proportion of famine burials exhibit stable dentine profiles and that several exhibit a pattern of opposing covariance between δ 15 N and δ 13 C. EH were also observed to have formed during or after the opposing covariance pattern for some individuals. Conclusions:The results of this study may reflect differences in diet between burial types rather than nutritional stress. Though nutritional stress could not be definitively identified using bone and dentine collagen, the results from dentine analysis support previous observations of biochemical patterns associated with nutritional stress during childhood.

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