Heavy metal exposure and its impact on society and health in northern England: A diachronic investigation from the Iron Age to the early medieval peri

This project will investigate the societal and health impacts that chronic exposure to heavy metals had for humans in northern England through osteoarchaeological and trace element analyses.

It focuses on two key socio-cultural transitions when heavy metal exposure changed: Iron Age to Roman and Roman to early medieval (c. 1000-years).

It will incorporate previously published datasets, along with new data targeted at these transitions and will proceed to temporal comparisons, comparisons between biological sexes as well as rural and urban environments in order to better understand the impact of the increase and decrease of heavy metal exposure in antiquity.