ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND—According to a statement released by the University of Aberdeen, a team of archaeologists and nutrition scientists employed a new technique to detect levels of vitamin D in a human hair sample from a 400-year-old burial uncovered in the coastal city of Aberdeen. The results were then compared to the levels of vitamin D in the hair of people living in northeastern Scotland today. The human body can produce vitamin D with exposure to sunshine, but the sunshine in northern Scotland is only strong enough for the process to work between the months of April and September. Vitamin D can also be obtained through eating oily fish and taking supplements. But the analysis detected seasonal variations in the levels of vitamin D in both the historical and the modern hair samples. “We might expect that with modern methods to enhance our vitamin D intake through diet and supplementation, this seasonal variation would be less significant,” said archaeologist Kate Britton. “Similarly, we could reasonably expect that a medieval population is likely to have spent a greater proportion [of the day] outside and that those living in coastal areas like Aberdeen in the past may have consumed a greater proportion of their diet from local sources, such as fish,” she added. The team suggests that analysis of historic hair samples could eventually help researchers examine the stress levels of past populations, and perhaps even their use of drugs. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Scientific Reports. To read about the poor health of London's nineteenth-century lower classes, go to "Haunt of the Resurrection Men."
