FOOD INSECURITY AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORDS IN NORTHERN GAUL (7TH-11TH CENTURIES)

• Grant number: 24/18030-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: February 01, 2025
• End date: April 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Archeology - Historical Archaeology
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Cândido da Silva
• Grantee: Milena Faboci Spadafora
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 21/02912-3 - A connected history of the Middle Ages: communication and circulation from the Mediterranean Sea, AP.TEM
• Associated scholarship(s): 25/08561-9 - FOOD INSECURITY AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORDS IN NORTHERN GAUL (7TH-11TH CENTURIES), BE.EP.MS

Abstract

This research aims to study the food and health situation of the high-medieval population based on the analysis of 11 archaeological sites in Northern Gaul between the 7th and 11th centuries. Based on the long historiographical tradition of hunger studies on the Middle Ages, the research introduces new analytical approaches and recent terminologies in this area, in which fits the key term of the research: Food Insecurity. During the 8th to 10th centuries, there was an increase in the number of mentions of famine in written sources and, at the same time, an increase in the volume and quantity of food production and storage structures. Bearing this initial problem in mind, the objectives of the research lie in exploring what the possible reasons could be as to why this could have occurred; and how food shortages and disparities in access to food are archaeologically evidenced. Such analysis will take into account the data provided by the selected excavation reports, such as: food processing and storage structures (mills, ovens, silos, barns, cellars, etc.), carpological and zooarchaeological data, and paleopathological analyzes of graves present in the habitats (through bone and dental stress markers), seeking a more general perspective of these selected settlements that takes into account all the elements present in them. In the framework of the researches on hunger and resilience in pre-modern communities, the aim is to understand how these societies reacted to such episodes of deficiencies and food crises, and how this combines with their sanitary state producing a synergy of archaeologically visible effects.