Document Type
Article
Abstract
Historical accounts document that the shift from rural settlement to urban settings and from employment in cottage industries to factory working at the turn of the nineteenth century had a negative impact on the lower classes. In 2015, the relocation of the cemetery of St Peter’s Churchyard in Blackburn, Lancashire, provided an opportunity to study the effects of industrialization on the diets and health of an early to mid-nineteenth-century population through osteological and biomolecular analyses. Those interred at St Peter’s represent a socioeconomic cross section of the church’s parishioners. In this article, we present an evaluation of the lifetime dietary biographies of the St Peter’s population modeled from bone collagen and incremental dentine stable isotope ratios (δ13C, δ15N, and δ34S). These data are combined with the results of aDNA and osteological analyses to explore the relationship between diet, health, and socioeconomic status. Dietary models determined from stable isotope data suggest that, contrary to historical accounts, there were no substantial differences between the diets of the lower and middle/ upper classes. Nor were there differences between the diets of most men and women, although there is a small number of women who did consume a greater proportion of sugar or maize than the rest of the population. Weaning typically commenced before one year of age and was completed by two years. Notably, there are no isotopically discernible differences in the weaning practices evident between those of lower and higher socioeconomic status. Additionally, there is little evidence for physiological stress during the weaning process.
Recommended Citation
Barlow, Andy; Pickard, Catriona; Fibiger, Linda; Sayle, Kerry L.; Schaeffer, Sarah; Smith, Emma; Franklin, Julie; Carter, Brooke; Perrino, Lea; and Bonsall, Clive
()
"Cotton Town Blues: An Investigation of Social Inequality, Diet, and Health in a Nineteenth-Century Industrializing Population—St Peter’s Churchyard, Blackburn, Lancashire,"
Human Biology:
Vol. 96:
Iss.
1, Article 3.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/humbiol/vol96/iss1/3
Methods Statement and Food Source Data
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Barlow et al. An investigation of social inequality and health December 2025.docx (2617 kB)
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MS #4566 Human Biology Cover Letter 12.12.25.docx (15 kB)
Cover Letter describing changes to article
