Maria B. Mednikova, Asya V. Engovatova, Anna A. Tarasova

Institute of Archaeology RAS, Moscow (medma_pa@mail.ru; engov@mail.ru; taa-volga@yandex.ru)

Key words: Yaroslavl, medieval city, 16th and 17th centuries, bio-archaeology, paleopathology, LAGs, indicators of physiological stress among ancient population, nutrition system.

Using scientific methods in archaeology greatly broadens the historiographic database. This article studies the so-called Harris Lines (Lines of Arrested Growth, or LAGs) on the X-rays of tibia bones among the citizens of Yaroslavl in 13th, 16th and 17th centuries. The first sample includes the remains of those citizens of Yaroslavl who died during the destruction of their city by Batu Khan’s troops in February 1238. The second and the third samples are from cemetery excavations at the Church of John Chrysostom. Harris Lines indicate temporary stoppage in normal human growth, and have frequently been used to identify episodic stress among infants and teenagers. During the epoch prior to the Mongolian invasions (the beginning of the 13th c.) Yaroslavl represented a sociological mean between the rural citizens of the Russian North and those in Kiev, by statistical frequency of such stress. The highest level of life-quality measurable in Yaroslavl came in the 16th c. By comparison, Yaroslavl’s townsfolk of the 13th and the 17th centuries experienced social privations more frequently. Yaroslavl’s population traditionally demonstrated a gender imbalance, which may be seen in the much higher tendency towards socially-induced stress in younger girls. In the 17th century, the incidence of LAGs soars among men – showing the vulnerability of the male section of the population in the face of starvation, war and epidemics. Furthermore, the data suggests that average human growth was primarily affected by social and cultural traditions, rather than climate changes.