Social mobility in the early middle ages

Abstract

Estimates of inequality of living standards based on average height differences between socioeconomic strata are likely biased if the social status of some individuals changed during their lifetime. Height differences estimated from skeletal remains, reflecting living standards during childhood and adolescence, are probably too small if social status is inferred based on grave goods which are associated with the individuals’ social status at the time of their death. The higher the level of social mobility, the more distinguished individuals will not have had a privileged childhood and, therefore, have the biological characteristics of the disadvantaged group. In a newly assembled sample of individual level anthropometric data from 26 early medieval row grave cemeteries in south-western Germany, men buried with a long sword in their grave were on average about 3cm taller than the others. In a simple model of the mechanics of the social-mobility bias, this height difference, together with parameters from the literature, implies a level of social mobility typical of small-scale agricultural or pastoral societies.