Health and History in Medieval England
About the Project
The After the Plague project was a 5 year project (2016-21) investigating burials in medieval Cambridge. The project was funded by the Wellcome Trust, and the McDonald Institute, St. John’s College and the Cambridge Archaeological Unit. We are particularly grateful to the staff of the Cambridge Archaeological Unit for their ongoing support and expertise. The Cambridge County Council Archaeological Service kindly loaned us archaeological collections for study.
This website was authored by J. Robb, in collaboration with the "After the Plague" project team. It was designed by Andrea Lorenz.
Project Participants
Principal Investigator: John Robb
Ancient DNA and Genetics: Ruoyun Hui, Christiana Scheib, Toomas Kivisild, Eugenia D’Atanasio
Archaeological and Historical Researcher: Craig Cessford
Social bioarchaeology and osteobiography: Sarah Inskip
Palaeopathologists: Jenna Dittmar and Piers Mitchell
Geometric Morphometrics: Jay Stock and Bram Mulder
Isotope analyses: Alice Rose and Tamsin O’Connell
Public Outreach Officer: Sarah-Jane Harknett
Data preparation: Jess Thompson
Artist reconstructions: Mark Gridley (https://markgridley.carbonmade.com/)
Maps: Vicki Herring
Senior Project Officer, Cambridge Archaeological Unit. Craig is has excavated dozens of medieval and other period sites in the Cambridge area, and has particular interest and expertise in primarily a field archaeologist, with an interest in medieval and later urbanism.
Research Fellow in Osteoarchaeology in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen As a palaeopathologist and social bioarchaeologist, her research explores questions about the origins and evolutionary history of disease, and how health has been impacted by environmental and social conditions.
Head of Public Engagement and Learning at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge
Ruoyun’s PhD research at the Department of Genetics (2019) investigated population structure and archaic admixtures around the world using high-coverage modern genomes. Ruoyun is interested in using population genetics to understand history. She works at Turing Institute
Research Fellow at the School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester Sarah’s research interests revolve around the examination of past people from their skeletons to learn more about their lived experiences, especially relating to health and disease. Currently, she directs an interdisciplinary project assessing how the arrival of tobacco impacted health in 16th to 19th century Western Europe, using skeletal, isotopic, genetic, proteomic, metabolomic and historical evidence.
Geneticist at KU Leuven
Honorary Research Associate of the McDonald Institute, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge Piers undertakes research into health and disease in past populations, through the study of excavated human skeletal remains and latrine sediment containing ancient parasites. He has worked on material from many contexts, with a particular focus upon medieval Europe and Crusader groups in the Levant.
Bram did his PhD on geometric morphometrics in medieval Cambridge people.
Head of the Department of Archaeology, Reader in Isotopic Ecology. Tamsin is a chemist focussing on biomolecular archaeology and isotopic analysis in archaeological and ecological contexts.
Research Associate at Durham University Alice’s main interests lie in socially contextualised isotopic analysis, osteology and palaeopathology, particularly focussed on British archaeological contexts.
Research Fellow at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom and Associate Professor of Ancient DNA, Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, Estonia Christiana uses ancient biomolecules like such as DNA to understand where our ancestors came from, where they went and how their genomes were shaped by their environment, cultural practices and infectious disease.