The effects of cultural networks on migration among Early and High Medieval populations in Central Europe based on dental phenotypic data

Bibliographic Data

ID12371213
AuthorsCorey S Ragsdale (0000-0002-4550-4443, Department of Anthropology Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Illinois USA, corresponding author), Petr Velemínský (0000-0003-3691-7817, Department of Anthropology Czech National Museum Prague Czech Republic)
Year2023
Volume33
Issue5
Pages816-828
Publication date2023-04-24
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Osteoarchaeology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1047-482X • E-ISSN: 1099-1212
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/oa.3229
OpenAlexW4366989732
LanguageEN
References cited24

Throughout the region of Central Europe, population movements have transcended political boundaries throughout history. The Early (6th to 11th centuries AD) and High (11th to 14th centuries AD) Medieval periods were times of constantly shifting cultural relationships, as well as climatic fluctuations. Limited archeological and historic records for the region often focus on the broader cultural processes of the time, and to a large degree, on elites. Very little work has focused on population movement, particularly across cultural boundaries. Here we examine the potential effects of cultural processes on the movement and subsequent genetic exchange among the people throughout the region. We compare biological, cultural, geographic, and temporal relationships using biological distance analysis and model matrix comparison. To examine population structures, we combine dental morphological and metric data derived from human skeletal remains representing Early and High Medieval groups. Our results support the important influence of cultural processes on migration and population structures among Early and High Medieval groups. Distances based on the cultural complexity model we employ here is significantly correlated with biological distances ( p = 0.028), while temporal period ( p = 0.099), geographic proximity ( p = 0.104), and shared origin ( p = 0.193) models are not significant. Although our model is limited in the complex breadth of cultural processes during the Early and High Medieval period, we assert that these processes played an important role in population movement. Finally, we support an inter‐regional approach to examining population interactions among Central European and neighboring areas

Economic geography · Genealogy · Geography · Period (music · Political science · Politics · Population · Sociology · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Demography · Forensic and Genetic Research · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies · History

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