Dental disease and dietary isotopes of individuals from St Gertrude Church cemetery, Riga, Latvia.

ABSTRACT: This research explores oral health indicators and stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data to explore diet, and differences in diet, between people buried in the four different contexts of the St Gertrude Church cemetery (15th- 17th centuries AD): the general cemetery, two mass graves, and a collective mass burial pit within the general cemetery. The main aim is to assess whether people buried in the mass graves were rural immigrants, or if they were more likely to be the victims of plague (or another epidemic) who lived in Riga and its suburbs. The data produced (from dental disease assessments and isotope analyses) were compared within, as well as between, the contexts. Most differences emerged when comparing the prevalence rates of dental diseases and other oral health indicators in male

SUBMITTER: Petersone-Gordina E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5783410 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature