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Facial skeleton morphology: does it reflect social stratification in an Early Mediaeval population from Great Moravia (ninth–tenth century AD, Czech Republic)?

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Abstract

This study examines the relationship between facial morphology and socioeconomic status within an Early Mediaeval population from the Mikulčice settlement. The agglomeration was the centre of the Great Moravian Empire in Central Europe and had a hierarchically structured society. The settlement can be divided on the basis of two criteria that possibly reflect socioeconomic classes: grave location (castle and sub-castle area) and grave goods (individuals with or without luxury grave goods). As study material, we utilized CT images of adult skulls. We divided the facial skeleton into two morphological regions: the upper face (49 males and 45 females) and the mandible (47 males and 41 females), which were investigated by landmark-based methods of geometric morphometrics. The results suggest that the population was highly stratified and that both of the criteria could reflect different genetic backgrounds, lifestyles or environmental conditions. Significant differences in upper face morphology were found between individuals with or without luxury grave goods, and significant differences in mandibular morphology between individuals buried in the castle and sub-castle areas. Although the morphology of the facial skeleton has a multi-etiological nature and all its parts are influenced by a complex of internal and external factors, upper face morphology based on grave goods may be more influenced by genetic variability between the study groups in the context of patrilocality and patrilineality, which were conventional practices in Early Mediaeval societies. On the other hand, mandibular morphology may be more influenced by external conditions (probably by a different diet).

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank MUDr. Bc. Martin Horák, Ph.D. for managing the CT imaging in Na Homolce Hospital, Prague, Czech Republic. The authors appreciate the assistance of Alastair Millar, BSc (Hons), in reviewing the manuscript for the English language.

Funding

This work was financially supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic under Grant No. 17-01878S and by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic under grant No. DKRVO 2019-2023/7.I.c, 00023272.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology and Human Genetics, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

    Šárka Bejdová, Ján Dupej & Jana Velemínská

  2. Department of Software and Computer Science Education, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

    Ján Dupej

  3. Department of Anthropology, National Museum, Prague, Czech Republic

    Petr Velemínský

  4. Institute of Archaeology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic

    Lumír Poláček

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  1. Šárka Bejdová
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  5. Jana Velemínská
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Šárka Bejdová, Ján Dupej and Petr Velemínský. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Šárka Bejdová. The manuscript was reviewed and edited by all authors. Supervision was done by Jana Velemínská. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Šárka Bejdová.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Formal consent is not required in the case of individuals from the Early Mediaeval population (retrospective data).

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Bejdová, Š., Dupej, J., Velemínský, P. et al. Facial skeleton morphology: does it reflect social stratification in an Early Mediaeval population from Great Moravia (ninth–tenth century AD, Czech Republic)?. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 13, 52 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-021-01298-0

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