To Understand Social Divides in Medieval England, Archaeologists Examined Tooth Enamel From Lead Mining Communities

Eyes may be the window to the soul, but new archaeological research shows that teeth could hold the clues to understanding social status among medieval England’s lead mining communities. In a study published in Antiquity last week, researchers examined teeth from burials in three cemeteries across the Peak District, looking at skeletons ranging from 650 C.E. to 1500 C.E. The team analyzed tooth enamel, which is formed in early childhood, to measure the level of environmental lead contamination that these populations were exposed to as a result of the region’s medieval-era lead industry.

While the Peak District’s lead industry dates to Roman times, production collapsed along with the empire’s presence in Britian in the 5th century C.E. Historians have long been unsure when exactly the regional industry was revived. The study pinpointed the revitalization of lead production to the mid-7th century, while pollution levels peaked in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, a finding that corresponds with previous historical and environmental evidence, according to a statement.

Those levels of lead pollution may have at times surpassed even Industrial Revolution-era levels. While coming into contact with or ingesting lead was practically unavoidable for wealthy people in the Middle Ages, this new study indicates that the effects of lead poisoning may have fallen heavily on women and members of lower social classes. Men buried with high-status grave goods showed “very low levels of contamination,” Loveluck tells the BBC.

Individuals buried with no markers of status in the 7th century registered much higher lead concentrations. This suggests that while elites may have been overseeing the newly revived lead industry, lower-status households bore the brunt of exposure to the metal. Because enamel forms during childhood and does not change later in life, the high levels of lead exposure came when the individuals in the study were young.

It was fashionable in ancient Egypt for upper-class men and women to apply kohl—a dark powder made from lead sulfide—around their eyes for aesthetic and medicinal reasons. Three women excavated for the study who showed high levels of lead poisoning died between the ages of 17 and 25, suggesting that women exposed to lead poisoning as girls may have faced a disproportionate risk as they entered childbearing years. During pregnancy, lead stored in the body can be released back into the bloodstream.

This exposure will likely have caused negative health effects in life, and perhaps contributed to higher rates of premature death among women of childbearing age,” Anna Bloxam, an archaeologist at the University of Nottingham, says in the statement. Lead poisoning, particularly in childhood, can lead to brain and nervous system damage, slowed growth and a host of other health issues. At the same time, all the individuals in the study lived to adulthood, and isotopic analysis indicates that most had grown up locally, signs that work in the industry was stable and passed down through generations.