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79
XIV/1/2023
INTERDISCIPLINARIA ARCHAEOLOGICA
NATURAL SCIENCES IN ARCHAEOLOGY
homepage: http://www.iansa.eu
Wealth or Just Job Seekers: Medieval Skeletal Series
from Kutná Hora-Sedlec (Czech Republic) with a Notable Surplus of Men
Hana Brzobohatá
1*
, Jan Frolík
1
, Filip Velímský
1
1
Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Letenská 4, 118 01 Prague 1, Czech Republic
1. Introduction
Silver-bearing ores of the Kutná Hora ore district were
probably discovered in the 1260s. Their mining began in the
last quarter of the 13
th
century, peaked during the 14
th
century
and still played an important role in the 15
th
century. At that
time, mining continued at depth, following the ore bodies
down, with the deepest part reaching a depth of hundreds of
metres (Jaroš, 1955). By the 16
th
century, mining was then
beyond its zenith, its decline already begun, and the deposits
were entirely exhausted by the end of the 17
th
century (Maur,
2001; Vaněk and Velebil, 2007; Frolík, 2012; Duraj
et al.
,
2019).
Traces of old mining activity are ubiquitous in this area.
They include shaft adits, collapsed shafts, mining residue
dumps, gallery entrances in stream and river valleys, slag
heaps, traces of the continual changes and overturning of
ground layers, and fndings of items of ceramic technology,
or lighting instruments, and include the St George mining
gallery which is accessible to the public (Valentová,
1999; Bartoš, 2008; Absolon, 2018). Another old mine,
its accessibility strictly limited to experts, is situated in
a large depression at the top of a nearby hill (Pechočová,
1992; Tomášek, 1999). Old subterraneous workings are
subject to ongoing underground prospection, investigation
and documentation – both by amateurs and experts of local
mining history (Velímský, 2017). Despite the obvious
symbiosis of mining and metallurgical activities during the
Middle and Early Modern ages, the fndings of smelting
workshops or places of probable smelting trials are very rare
(Valentová, 1993; 1999; Frolík, 2014). It is estimated that the
local deposits have yielded over 1700–2500 tons of silver;
however, the upper limit of this range has been estimated on
the basis of highly indirect entries, such as data on the size
of the royal urbura – the monarch’s share of the proft – and
various royal payments (Kořan, 1950; Vaněk and Velebil,
2007; Holub, 2015).
We have to face even much higher uncertainty when
it comes to population estimates of this historical area.
Any estimates of the size of medieval cities remain highly
speculative, but we cannot avoid them. According to some
assessments, at the end of the 14
th
century, Kutná Hora had
about 8,000 inhabitants (Maur, 1998, p.49); however, other
studies present (for around 1500 CE) that the population of
Volume XIV ● Issue 1/2023 ● Pages 79–92
*Corresponding author. E-mail: brzobohata@arup.cas.cz
ARTICLE INFO
Article history:
Received: 11
th
July 2022
Accepted: 3
rd
November 2022
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24916/iansa.2023.1.6
Key words:
bioarchaeology
mass burials
demographic crises
sex ratio
Middle Ages
mining
ABSTRACT
Kutná Hora entered the 14
th
century as a rich, prosperous, and densely-populated city producing tons
of silver. Such an amount of precious metal could not be mined and processed without an infux of
people from other cities and rural areas and without the contribution of skilled specialists from abroad.
Despite the apparent wealth of the city, its inhabitants (either settled or newly arrived) experienced and
died during mortality crises. Evidence of such events was discovered in the Kutná Hora suburbs, where
the medieval burial ground, including a signifcant component of mass burials, has been unearthed.
In the data derived from pooled catastrophic and non-catastrophic burials (n=1785 individuals),
a notable surplus of males has been identifed with a striking imbalanced adult sex ratio of 149. After
considering factors potentially infuencing this value, we suggest that the fgure likely mirrors the
original population composition as a consequence of the infow of men migrating to the town for
labour/economic opportunities.
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Hana Brzobohatá, Jan Frolík, Filip Velímský: Wealth or Just Job Seekers: Medieval Skeletal Series from Kutná Hora-Sedlec (Czech Republic)
with a Notable Surplus of Men
80
the city and its suburbs was more than 10,000, and perhaps
even 18,000 (Molenda, 1976; Macek, 1992, p.27). Urban
growth will occur based on natural increases and any net
immigration from nearby or relatively more distant regions
(Betsinger and DeWitte, 2021), and this certainly also
applied to medieval Kutná Hora, whose socio-professional
structure was characterised by an absolute predominance
of professions and crafts related to mining, metallurgy
and minting. The continuing demand for silver afected
the mining system, which was forced into an increasing
specialisation of workers with the gradual penetration into
greater mining depths (Jaroš, 1955).
Thanks to textual as well as pictorial evidence, it is known,
which professions worked here. Namely, the Kutná Hora
Illumination and the picture in the Kutná Hora Gradual depict
the mining and processing of silver in a detailed and almost
documentary manner. In addition to the entire technological
process (ore milling, ore washing, sales to ore merchants,
smelting to produce silver), the illustrations have also
captured its protagonists: miners, mine carpenters, workers
carrying ore or gangue, organisers of mining works, mine
ofcers, unqualifed labourers working on mine ventilation,
ore processing,
etc.
(see Stöllner, 2008 for a more detailed
description of all possible activities; Štefan, 2013a). The
most complex technological steps were performed by early
smelters, whose skills and knowledge went deep and were
to be admired because they were able to experimentally-
empirically develop highly complicated metallurgical
processes without relying on a basic theoretical knowledge
of chemistry. They were, for example, able to obtain silver
from some poorer and resilient ores of various kinds, as
was the case in Kutná Hora (Vaněk and Velebil, 2007). All
the above-mentioned workers formed very specifc and
artifcial communities working in hostile places, created
against all odds and facing regular and serious threats. They
were subject to the harsh working conditions associated
with mining and smelting: poor ventilation, fooding, mine
or rock collapse, and inhalation of noxious gases (toxic)
released during metallurgical processes. On the other hand,
due to their considerable economic importance, medieval
miners were also ofered distinct social, economic, and legal
advantages over most other physical labourers at that time
(Geltner and Weeda, 2021).
During the exploitation of silver deposits, Kutná Hora had
always lived “beyond its means” compared to the surrounding
territory and the weight of silver could have mitigated
against the consequences of disasters and catastrophes
(Štefan, 2013b). It is documented that an extensive food
supply was necessary to keep early modern Swedish miners
and related workers healthy and able to work, and to keep
mining operations continuous and at the same intensity
(Bäckström
et al.
, 2018). As in Sweden, the Kutná Hora
mining community could also have been provided with basic
commodities during barren years and the city better bufered
from the periodically-occurring famines and disasters.
However, the city never resisted completely in every case and
occasionally had to surrender. Due to the scarcity of detailed
chronicler reports and historical data, little is known about
the local famines and epidemic outbreaks, but the town’s high
population density coupled with its unhygienic conditions
made residents prone to infections (Walter and DeWitte,
2017). However, direct evidence of mortality crises has
been discovered in a Kutná Hora suburb, where a medieval
burial ground that includes a signifcant component of mass
burials has recently been unearthed (Brzobohatá
et al.
, 2019;
Brzobohatá
et al.
, 2021; de Lépinau
et al.
, 2021). These
mass graves have been assigned to catastrophic events of
the second and ffth decade of the 14
th
century, with famine
and mortality that peaked in 1318, and plague mortality that
peaked in 1348–1350 (see below).
The need for both skilled and unskilled workforces that
could run the mines prompted the necessary immigration
of settlers. From the very beginning of the existence
of Czech cities, their proportion of Czech inhabitants
gradually increased with the arrival of rural populations
from surrounding areas (Maur, 1998). In addition to this
predominantly Czech group, the infux of new manpower
from abroad to the newly-opened mines beneftted both
the settlers and the owners of land rich in silver resources.
Similar to other East-Central European medieval mining
cities, typical foreign settlers were Germans – ready-
skilled miners and smelters who migrated here from areas
with long-established mining traditions (Maur, 1998, p.49;
Szende, 2011, p.196; 2019; Štefan, 2013b). The proportion
of Italians, for example the professional tradesmen and
fnanciers involved in organising and fnancing the mining
operations and who carefully selected the commercially-
most-signifcant settlements, was also not negligible
(Szende, 2011, p.196; 2019).
Since the medieval towns provided various employment
opportunities, women may have constituted a signifcant
proportion of the Kutná Hora incomers. But silver-ore mining
and silver metallurgy mainly involved male-dominated jobs
and thus it can be assumed, with high probability, that new
migrants were predominantly men. However, the extent of
this phenomenon is unclear and is not discernible from the
written evidence. The high immigration rate of particular
segments of the population – such as males capable of silver
mining/smelting and those migrating for labour opportunities
– should be something refected in the mortality record
(Grauer, 2002, p.277). The aim of this study is to present
the frst anthropological data from the perspective of the
population’s sex ratio – an index of the sex composition
in demographic and other scholarly analyses that refers
to the total number of males for every 100 females in the
population (Poston and Micken, 2005, p.42). Much of the
contemporary research on sex ratios deals with sex ratios at
birth. Worldwide, today, the sex ratio at birth is not equal
(but remarkably homogeneous) and usually reaches values
about 103–107 boys per 100 girls (Bardsley, 2014; Chao
et al.
, 2019). The child sex ratio, assigned to the period of
infancy and childhood, can be afected by a wide range of
determinants, such as diferential mortality rates, gender-
discriminatory practices or less apparent factors such as
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IANSA 2023 ● XIV/1 ● 79–92
Hana Brzobohatá, Jan Frolík, Filip Velímský: Wealth or Just Job Seekers: Medieval Skeletal Series from Kutná Hora-Sedlec (Czech Republic)
with a Notable Surplus of Men
81
various kinds of patriarchal features (Szołtysek
et al.
, 2022).
In adult populations, its value depends on several factors:
the sex ratio at birth, diferential mortality rates between the
sexes at diferent ages, and losses and gains through migration
(Hesketh and Zhu, 2006). In most countries throughout the
world, the greater mortality rates of males means that the sex
ratio decreases across the age range to a value much closer to
100 in full adulthood. In developed countries there is a further
decline in the sex ratio and women usually predominate in
the older age categories (Coale, 1991; Klufová, 2008, p.41).
Currently this indicator can take various forms, such as the
operational sex ratio, which captures the number of men and
women that are available to potential partners (Filser and
Willführ, 2022).
In the current study we have aimed: (1) to investigate
the possible diferences in male and female counts in the
skeletal assemblages derived from the medieval population
of Kutná Hora, and (2), if the assumption of a surplus of men
is confrmed as a given, to explore whether this surplus is
manifested both in years of demographic crises and in non-
catastrophic times, in a consistent way.
2. Materials and Methods
2.1 Archaeological Context and Site Information
The recorded evidence of prehistoric and medieval
colonisation in the Kutná Hora-Sedlec area is very rich owing
to the long-term archaeological research of the site and its
key subject, the famous Cistercian monastery (Velímský,
2009; Charvátová, 2013). The Cemetery Church of All Saints
with Ossuary, originally Gothic but latterly rebuilt in the
Baroque style in the 1700s, is located in the northern part of
the monastery complex on a very gentle, north-rising slope
that forms part of the southern foot of Kaňk Hill (Figure 1).
The cemetery neighbouring the church building is still
a functional burial ground for the local population, which is
the reason why no archaeological excavation had been carried
out there until 2013. The cemetery has been reported as being
in this position since the end of the 13
th
century, when it was
to be newly founded as a lay cemetery for the monastery’s
subjects (tributaries) and the newly-arrived population of
upper settlements in the expanding town of Kutná Hora.
The frst mention of Sedlec cemetery
(Scedlicensi cimiterio)