Brief and precarious lives: Infant mortality in contrasting sites from medieval and post‐medieval England (AD 850–1859)

Abstract

This study compares the infant mortality profiles of 128 infants from two urban and two rural cemetery sites in medieval England. The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of urbanization and industrialization in terms of endogenous or exogenous causes of death. In order to undertake this analysis, two different methods of estimating gestational age from long bone lengths were used: a traditional regression method and a Bayesian method. The regression method tended to produce more marked peaks at 38 weeks, while the Bayesian method produced a broader range of ages and were more comparable with the expected "natural" mortality profiles.At all the sites, neonatal mortality (28-40 weeks) outweighed post-neonatal mortality (41-48 weeks) with rural Raunds Furnells in Northamptonshire, showing the highest number of neonatal deaths and post-medieval Spitalfields, London, showing a greater proportion of deaths due to exogenous or environmental factors. Of the four sites under study, Wharram Percy in Yorkshire showed the most convincing "natural" infant mortality profile, suggesting the inclusion of all births at the site (i.e., stillbirths and unbaptised infants).

The Economic and Demographic Transition, Mortality, and Comparative Development

“…The relevant data moments extracted from this data set are broadly consistent with other data sources based on register data and alternative surveys for gross earnings, see, Domeij and Floden (2010). The data moments are also close to the ones typically used for the calibration of dispersion in permanent incomes in other Woods (1997) and Bideau et al (1997) and Lewis and Gowland (2007). Concerning the cost of raising children, the target r = 5 in 2000 is set in line with the estimates by Haveman and Wolfe (1995).…”

The Economic and Demographic Transition, Mortality, and Comparative Development

“…42 The initial level of TFP is a scale parameter that does not affect the 39 The average of life expectancy at age five in the period 1760-1840 was 48.38, in the period 1790-1810 it was 48.06 (Human Mortality Database 2014). Similar figures are documented for England, France, and Italy, see Woods (1997) and Bideau, Desjardins, and Perez-Brignoli (1997) and Lewis and Gowland (2007). Also note that, as discussed below, in 2000 child mortality is around 0.004, which implies the convergence of life expectancy at 5 plus 5 years of 80.74, and of life expectancy at birth of 80.45.…”

Socioeconomic Influence on Caries Susceptibility in Juvenile Individuals with Limited Dental Care: Example from an Early Middle Age Population (Great Moravia, 9th-10th Centuries A.D., Czech Republic)

“…However, in such collection, we have the problem of age-at-death estimation. When studies based on living populations have accurate age of the subjects under study, in our case estimations (even with reliable methods) give at best age classes (Albert and Greene, 1999;Cole, 2003;Heuzé & Cardoso, 2008;Lewis & Gowland, 2007). This study uses a little the age-at-death estimation that is why we try to free from this bias using dental mineralization stages.…”