Life expectancy has risen quite dramatically during the last 100 years or so, largely due to improved standards of living and health care. The most common causes of mortality today have become the degenerative diseases of old age such as heart disease, strokes and neoplastic disease. Medieval Aberdonians probably succumbed to infectious diseases that are generally regarded as of little significance to the modern western world, such as influenza, cholera and typhoid. It is rarely possible to determine cause of death in archaeological populations, SK 239 being the only individual in the present group for whom cause of death could be given.
Internet Archaeology is an open access journal based in the Department of Archaeology, University of York. Except where otherwise noted, content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 (CC BY) Unported licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that attribution to the author(s), the title of the work, the Internet Archaeology journal and the relevant URL/DOI are given.
Terms and Conditions | Legal Statements | Privacy Policy | Cookies Policy | Citing Internet Archaeology
Internet Archaeology content is preserved for the long term with the Archaeology Data Service. Help sustain and support open access publication by donating to our Open Access Archaeology Fund.