Family in Medieval Society: A Bioarchaeological Perspective

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a useful review adding to an increasing number of studies on Medieval communities and kinship relations. It is also interesting the idea to comment some keys studies that used both archaeological and genetic approaches.

The paper is clear and well-structured. English needs to be improved in some sentences as well as it would be important to add references about ancient DNA studies.

I would recommend to close the review with a conclusion paragraph where authors could highlight the importance of a multidisciplinary approach in the kinship studies and discuss future perspectives.

I also have some minor comments that I suggest to add:

Line 14: require clarification, rephrasing.

Line 141: add one or more references. For example: 

Mapping European population movement through genomic research. Medieval Worlds,4(2016), pp.65-78

Line 168: Developments in NGS ( Next generation Sequencing) techniques and computational methods have allowed the analysis...

Line 172: add references on paleogenomics studies

LIne 212: add a reference to support 'differential health outcomes..'

Line 239: change 'were key to demystifing' to 'Thanks to bioarchaeology and genomics  is now possible to demystify this interpretation' 

Line 248: rephrase 'Studying gender roles in ancient societies contributes to insights into social organization and power structures' to ' The study of gender roles contributes to better understand social organization and power structures in ancient communities'

Line 248: add a reference

Line 282: change ‘to alterations in an individual's DNA’ to ‘genetic mutations’

Line 299: the first ancient DNA (aDNA) study

Line 333: genetic analyses of ancient pathogens

Line 336: add more updated references on genomics of ancient pathogens.

For example:

a)Ancient DNA study reveals HLA susceptibility locus for leprosy in medieval Europeans.Nat. Commun. 2018;9:1569.

b)Ancient bacterial genomes reveal a high diversity ofTreponema pallidum strains in early modern Europe

Curr. Biol.,30(2020), pp.3788-3803

c)Yersinia pestis and the plague of Justinian 541–543 AD: a genomic analysis. Lancet Infect. Dis.,14(2014), pp.319-326

Line 349: add more updated references on genomics of ancient pathogens.

Line 468-470: rephrasing

Line 504: eliminate ‘a’ historical level

Line 508: change ‘it is possible’ to ‘possibly, people from rural areas…’

Line 522: change ‘is contributing’ to ‘contributes’

Line 597: ‘A Medieval burial in Castilla y Leon’

English needs to be improved in some sentences 

Author Response

Dear Sirs,

We would like to thank both reviewers for their careful review and suggestions. We then respond to each reviewer’s request and comment.

Reviewer 1

• This is a useful review adding to an increasing number of studies on Medieval communities and kinship relations. It is also interesting the idea to comment some keys studies that used both archaeological and genetic approaches.

• The paper is clear and well-structured. English needs to be improved in some sentences as well as it would be important to add references about ancient DNA studies.

Thank you very much for your review and comments.

• I would recommend to close the review with a conclusion paragraph where authors could highlight the importance of a multidisciplinary approach in the kinship studies and discuss future perspectives.

Thank you for the suggestion, we have now included a Discussion and Conclusion section.

• I also have some minor comments that I suggest to add:

Line 14: require clarification, rephrasing.

Line 141: add one or more references. For example: 

Mapping European population movement through genomic research. Medieval Worlds,4(2016), pp.65-78

Line 168: Developments in NGS ( Next generation Sequencing) techniques and computational methods have allowed the analysis...

Line 172: add references on paleogenomics studies

LIne 212: add a reference to support 'differential health outcomes..'

Line 239: change 'were key to demystifing' to 'Thanks to bioarchaeology and genomics  is now possible to demystify this interpretation' 

Line 248: rephrase 'Studying gender roles in ancient societies contributes to insights into social organization and power structures' to ' The study of gender roles contributes to better understand social organization and power structures in ancient communities'

Line 248: add a reference

Line 282: change ‘to alterations in an individual's DNA’ to ‘genetic mutations’

Line 299: the first ancient DNA (aDNA) study

 Line 333: genetic analyses of ancient pathogens

 Line 336: add more updated references on genomics of ancient pathogens.

For example:

a)Ancient DNA study reveals HLA susceptibility locus for leprosy in medieval Europeans.Nat. Commun. 2018;9:1569.

b)Ancient bacterial genomes reveal a high diversity ofTreponema pallidum strains in early modern Europe

Curr. Biol.,30(2020), pp.3788-3803

c)Yersinia pestis and the plague of Justinian 541–543 AD: a genomic analysis. Lancet Infect. Dis.,14(2014), pp.319-326

 Line 349: add more updated references on genomics of ancient pathogens.

 Line 468-470: rephrasing

Considering the reviews from reviewer 1 and 2, the authors largely reformulated some of the parts mentioned here by reviewer 1, so we modified and adapted them to both reviews, always trying to maintain both requirements.

 Line 504: eliminate ‘a’ historical level

 Line 508: change ‘it is possible’ to ‘possibly, people from rural areas…’

 Line 522: change ‘is contributing’ to ‘contributes’

 Line 597: ‘A Medieval burial in Castilla y Leon’

Thank you very much for the corrections.

In general, we try not only to respond to reviewers' requirements but also to increase any information that might not be correctly or sufficiently explained.

The authors are once again grateful for the accurate observations and corrections of the reviewer, as they allow for a significant improvement in the quality of the presented work.

We look forward to receiving a positive response concerning the acceptance of our manuscript.

Thank you for your deliberation of this manuscript.

Sincerely,

The authors

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper aims to present a review of the research investigating family and kinship in medieval European society, from an anthropological and genetic perspective.

In general I feel that the information and research about family / kinship are diluted throughout the manuscript with less relevant information. There is also a lack of references to support many statements made by the authors. A discussion part is also missing to show how all these studies may have changed our perception of Family during this medieval period. Or this discussion part could be added at the end of each section and sub-section.

The authors should try to make clearer the differences between the anthropological perspective (line 133) and the genetic perspective (line 379) sections, as they both include similar sources of information (e.g. genetic).

In the anthropological perspective section (which I understand as a ‘non genetic section’), the authors should mention the studies using morphological and morphometric analysis to investigate affinities between individuals and populations. Especially the authors should discuss the use of nonmetric dental and osseous traits which have been extensively used to investigate close familial relationships in necropoli (see Hauser G, de Stefano GF. 1989. Epigenetic variants of the human skull. Stuttgart: Schweizerbart ; and numerous articles in the field of archaeology/biological anthropology).

Cranial and dental variation should be discussed more deeply in the manuscript in regards to the question of the ‘family’, as they represent a much larger corpus of publications than those based on genetic analyses.

 The authors listed different tools usable (genetic, isotopic, etc) and they should provide systematically examples to support and illustrate the use of these tools to investigate kinship and affinities between individuals. When possible these examples should come from research in the European medieval period, and if not from other periods or geographic areas.

 Abstract.

Line 13 : Please use maternal and paternal in " same lineage through the mother and/or paternal side "

Line  16 : Keywords. Please replace ‘Bioarcheology’ with "Bioarchaeology ". The authors should check througtout the manuscript for spelling mistakes.

 Introduction.

The authors should explained clearly in the Introduction why it is important to investigate the concept of Family in the medieval period of Western Europe, and in this respect describe briefly our current knowledge on the previous and following periods in Europe. They should delimit in time the Medieval period which is under investigation in their study. They should also clarify the geographic range of western Europe (does it include Russia and today eastern Europe? The authors mention Lithuania and Poland line 62-64).

It would be interesting to know the family structure before the medieval period, to measure the change or specificity of this period.

  Line 23 : please provide a reference for "according to the same authors".

 Line 45 : Please clarify what are the "family morality "precepts followed by the medieval European societies. Please discuss in the manuscprt if the bioarchaeological data support these precepts, and to which degree.

 Line 48. When was the single code for marriage applied? And in which countries ? Did it gradually spread through Western Europe ?

 2. The Bioarchaeological perspective

 One important information missing is the evidences that Immatures were buried with different funeral practices, and often in different locations than the rest of the populations. This practices through medieval Europe is well documented, and relevant to the concept of family.

 Line 130 : By "anthropology " do the authors means "biological anthropology "?

 Line 134 : The link between mobility and the concept of family should appear in Section 2.1.1. The authors could give examples of  burial sites where the information on mobility was key to better understand the burial organisation and kinship structure.

 Line 135-141 : Three sentences saying the same thing. Please shorten this paragraph.

 Line 150 : Strontium analysis "providing information about early-life migration " is incorrect, as it will inform on movement later in life. Stromtium analysis can tell if an individual has spent their early life in the same or different area from where their remains were recovered.

 Line 165 and 168 : As the authors discuss medieval Europe, the population genetic history references could also refer to this region, rather than to China or North Africa.

 Line 180 : Please provide references of work "combining genetic and stable isotope analyses ".

 Line 217 and 227 : Repetition. Please avoid repetition of the same information between different paragraphs. And add references to support your statements.

 Line 221-229 : Please provide references.

 Line 230 : Are there any theories in social sciences and humanities related to the concept of Family? Please mention these theories and their link with the bioarchaological data on sex and gender. The authors mention that gender informs on dietary pattern, trade, production, health, etc but what about the link with "family "?

The link between gender and the concept of family should appear in Section 2.1.2. or the authors should explain why it is not discussed. The authors could give examples of  burial sites where the information on gender was crucial to understand the burial organisation and kinship structure.

I find that Section 2.1.2 could be shorten, as there are a lot of redundancy.

 Line 273 : Is there any information on the frequency of congenital anomalies in different societies around the world, or in the archaeological records ? To give an idea of the biais this could introduce when studying kinship in archaeological population.

 Line 319 : This section 2.1.4 need to be re writen to fit the topic of this manuscript. The first part (line 320-359) is a review of ancient DNA studies on pathogens and diseases (including many references), and  from line 360-378 there is a paragraph discusing in general terms the link between family and disease, but without any references to support it.

 Line 379. The authors should mention the limit of the genetic approach due to ancient DNA degradation. They could also mention the substantial forensic research on kinship analysis which often overlaps with historical research (see the early work on the Romanov familly) and the development of dedicated tools by the forensic sciences (e.g., database, software to determine the degree of relationships between individuals).

 Line 441 : The authors could mention that complete mtDNA sequences (mitogenomes), but also D-loop region or diagnostic SNP can be used to infer affinity between individuals.

 Line 468 : The authors could mention that different Y markers (Y-STR or diagnostic Y-SNP) can be used to infer affinity between individuals.

 Line 511-514 : Please provide a reference to support this statement. Is there any example of adoption sugested by genetic analysis of ancient human remains?

 Line 522-523 : Please provide information to support the ‘more and more’ studies statement. For example a quick search of relevant key words in pubmed or google scholars could help. Are there more studies published in some period or region of Europe? Are there more studies on mass graves or elite burials ?

 Line 546 : Rath et al reference is not listed in the reference section (only Krsitin Rath et al). Please correct this reference.

 Line 575 : The study by King et al 2014 could give an opportunity to the authors to discuss the difference between social kinship and genetic kinship, they mentioned in the Introduction.

 Line 638 : Following the list of examples, a discussion section is missing to discuss how these studies, and others not mentioned by the authors, could modify the understanding of the concept of family in the European medival period. 

Author Response

Madrid, 26th January 2024

Dear Sirs,

We would like to thank both reviewers for their careful review and suggestions. We then respond to each reviewer’s request and comment.

• In general I feel that the information and research about family / kinship are diluted throughout the manuscript with less relevant information. There is also a lack of references to support many statements made by the authors.

Thank you for highlighting this issue. We added more references to support our statements along the text.

2. A discussion part is also missing to show how all these studies may have changed our perception of Family during this medieval period. Or this discussion part could be added at the end of each section and sub-section.

Thank you for the suggestion, we have already included the Discussion and Conclusion sections.

3. The authors should try to make clearer the differences between the anthropological perspective (line 133) and the genetic perspective (line 379) sections, as they both include similar sources of information (e.g. genetic).?

Thank you for your suggestion. We removed most of the genetic information from the anthropological perspective and focused more on osteology in this part of the manuscript. 

4. In the anthropological perspective section (which I understand as a ‘non genetic section’), the authors should mention the studies using morphological and morphometric analysis to investigate affinities between individuals and populations. Especially the authors should discuss the use of nonmetric dental and osseous traits which have been extensively used to investigate close familial relationships in necropoli (see Hauser G, de Stefano GF. 1989. Epigenetic variants of the human skull. Stuttgart: Schweizerbart ; and numerous articles in the field of archaeology/biological anthropology).

Thank you for your suggestion. We added a new section (2.1.4 Morphological and morphometric skeletal variability; lines 403 to 448) where we discuss the potential of using morphological and morphometric analysis to investigate affinities between individuals and populations.

5. Cranial and dental variation should be discussed more deeply in the manuscript in regards to the question of the ‘family’, as they represent a much larger corpus of publications than those based on genetic analyses.

Thank you for your comment. As mentioned in point 4, we added a new section where we included cranial and dental variation.

6. The authors listed different tools usable (genetic, isotopic, etc) and they should provide systematically examples to support and illustrate the use of these tools to investigate kinship and affinities between individuals. When possible these examples should come from research in the European medieval period, and if not from other periods or geographic areas.

Thank you for highlighting this issue. We provided more concrete examples of the use of genetics, osteology, and isotopes. We also tried to focus more on research done in the European Medieval period.

7. Abstract.

• Line 13 : Please use maternal and paternal in " same lineage through the mother and/or paternal side"
• Line  16 : Keywords. Please replace ‘Bioarcheology’ with "Bioarchaeology". The authors should check througtout the manuscript for spelling mistakes.

Thank you for the corrections.

Introduction.

8. The authors should explained clearly in the Introduction why it is important to investigate the concept of Family in the medieval period of Western Europe, and in this respect describe briefly our current knowledge on the previous and following periods in Europe.

Thank you for the comment, the new information can be found in lines 18-40, 247-256 and 916-922.

9. They should delimit in time the Medieval period which is under investigation in their study.

Thank you, this information was included in line 20.

10. They should also clarify the geographic range of western Europe (does it include Russia and today eastern Europe? The authors mention Lithuania and Poland line 62-64).

Thank you, we have proceeded to eliminate the term WESTERN from the majority of the text; we also tried to limit the European region (lines 154-156).

11. It would be interesting to know the family structure before the medieval period, to measure the change or specificity of this period.

Thank you, this information was included in lines 30-40.

12. Line 23 : please provide a reference for "according to the same authors".

Thank you, this information was included in lines 45-46.

13. Line 45 : Please clarify what are the "family morality "precepts followed by the medieval European societies. Please discuss in the manuscprt if the bioarchaeological data support these precepts, and to which degree.

Thank you, this information was included in lines 70-100, and the discussion and conclusion sections.

14. Line 48. When was the single code for marriage applied? And in which countries ? Did it gradually spread through Western Europe ?

Thank you, this information was included in lines 102-140.

2. The Bioarchaeological perspective

 One important information missing is the evidences that Immatures were buried with different funeral practices, and often in different locations than the rest of the populations. This practices through medieval Europe is well documented, and relevant to the concept of family.

Thank you for your suggestion, this information was included in lines 219-248.

Line 130 : By "anthropology " do the authors means "biological anthropology "?

Thank you for your suggestion. We clarified that we were talking about biological anthropology and changed the section title to “2.1. The bioanthropological perspective” (Line 133)

Line 134 : The link between mobility and the concept of family should appear in Section 2.1.1.

The authors could give examples of  burial sites where the information on mobility was key to better understand the burial organisation and kinship structure.

Thank you for the comment, we have tried to improve that part (point 2.1.1)

Line 135-141 : Three sentences saying the same thing. Please shorten this paragraph.

Thank you for the suggestion.

Line 150 : Strontium analysis "providing information about early-life migration " is incorrect, as it will inform on movement later in life. Stromtium analysis can tell if an individual has spent their early life in the same or different area from where their remains were recovered.

Thank you for your comment. We clarified what we meant about early-life migration and explained how strontium analysis of different teeth provides geochemical signatures at different times of the individual before they reach 23 years of age (Lines 156 – 169).

Line 165 and 168 : As the authors discuss medieval Europe, the population genetic history references could also refer to this region, rather than to China or North Africa.

Thank you for your suggestion. We removed the population's genetic history outside of Europe.

Line 180 : Please provide references of work "combining genetic and stable isotope analyses ".

Thank you for your suggestion. We added references of a few studies combining genetic and stable isotope analyses (e.g. lines 186-201).

Line 217 and 227 : Repetition. Please avoid repetition of the same information between different paragraphs. And add references to support your statements.

Thank you for your comment. We rewrote this section.

Line 221-229 : Please provide references.

Thank you, we have already included references.

Line 230 : Are there any theories in social sciences and humanities related to the concept of Family? Please mention these theories and their link with the bioarchaological data on sex and gender.

Thank you for the comment, yes, as we mentioned, there are several authors that explain different concepts of family, as we mentioned in the article, Johnson and Paul 2016 or the work of Levi Strauss (1984, 1987, 199)

The authors mention that gender informs on dietary pattern, trade, production, health, etc but what about the link with "family "?

Concerning this part, we did not find a direct link between diet studies and the “family”. However, we include in the discussion section a possible explanation for this subjection, for example, families from a better social level would have a better diet (lines 930-933).

The link between gender and the concept of family should appear in Section 2.1.2. or the authors should explain why it is not discussed. The authors could give examples of  burial sites where the information on gender was crucial to understand the burial organisation and kinship structure.

Thank you for your suggestion. We rewrote this section.

I find that Section 2.1.2 could be shorten, as there are a lot of redundancy.

Thank you, we have already changed the section.

Line 273 : Is there any information on the frequency of congenital anomalies in different societies around the world, or in the archaeological records ? To give an idea of the biais this could introduce when studying kinship in archaeological population.

Thank you for your suggestion. We added more information about the scarcity of data on the prevalence of congenital anomalies in historical populations and gave a few examples of case studies, more commonly published. Lines 357 to 362.

Line 319 : This section 2.1.4 need to be re writen to fit the topic of this manuscript. The first part (line 320-359) is a review of ancient DNA studies on pathogens and diseases (including many references), and  from line 360-378 there is a paragraph discusing in general terms the link between family and disease, but without any references to support it.

Thank you for your comment. We rewrote this section which is now “2.1.5 Disease susceptibility in the family” (Line 451) and clarified that a few topics have not been explored yet and are our suggestions for future works.

Line 379. The authors should mention the limit of the genetic approach due to ancient DNA degradation. They could also mention the substantial forensic research on kinship analysis which often overlaps with historical research (see the early work on the Romanov familly) and the development of dedicated tools by the forensic sciences (e.g., database, software to determine the degree of relationships between individuals).

Thank you for your comment. This information can be found in lines 563-575.

Line 441 : The authors could mention that complete mtDNA sequences (mitogenomes), but also D-loop region or diagnostic SNP can be used to infer affinity between individuals.

Thank you for your suggestion.  We have included this information in lines 631-632.

Line 468 : The authors could mention that different Y markers (Y-STR or diagnostic Y-SNP) can be used to infer affinity between individuals.

Thank you for your advice. We have included the information in lines 660-662.

Line 511-514 : Please provide a reference to support this statement. Is there any example of adoption sugested by genetic analysis of ancient human remains?

Thank you for your comment. In our case, we have studied two different cases where the historical record indicated individuals were “family”, but our results show they were unrelated from the biological point of view (one case from Spain, from the medieval burial place of “Cadalso de los Vidrios”, where an adult woman was buried hugging and infant, and from the biological point of view are unrelated (https://www.comunidad.madrid/cultura/patrimonio-cultural/yacimiento-mezquita-cadalso-vidrios), and the other case, three Egyptian mummies from the Ptolemaic period, where one of them could have been adopted, although was “presented” as descendant just like the other child. In our case, we have not published our work, since no scientific journal has yet accepted our work for publication, as it does not "fit" with its most frequently published themes. In the present article, we present the case of King et al., 2014 which can probably illustrate a possible situation of adoption.

Line 522-523 : Please provide information to support the ‘more and more’ studies statement. For example a quick search of relevant key words in pubmed or google scholars could help. Are there more studies published in some period or region of Europe? Are there more studies on mass graves or elite burials ?

Thank you for your comment. Yes, are are several studies, in the article we present seven examples that can illustrate these investigations on the medieval period.

Line 546 : Rath et al reference is not listed in the reference section (only Krsitin Rath et al). Please correct this reference.

Thank you, we have already corrected the error.

Line 575 : The study by King et al 2014 could give an opportunity to the authors to discuss the difference between social kinship and genetic kinship, they mentioned in the Introduction.

Thank you for highlighting this point. We have included this information in lines 815-817.

Line 638 : Following the list of examples, a discussion section is missing to discuss how these studies, and others not mentioned by the authors, could modify the understanding of the concept of family in the European medival period. 

Thank you for your comment, we have included now a discussion and a conclusion sections. Specifically, we mention the contribution of bioarchaeological studies in lines 967-976.

In general, we try not only to respond to reviewers' requirements but also to increase any information that might not be correctly or sufficiently explained.

The authors are once again grateful for the accurate observations and corrections of the reviewer, as they allow for a significant improvement in the quality of the presented work.

We look forward to receiving a positive response concerning the acceptance of our manuscript.

Thank you for your deliberation of this manuscript.

Sincerely,

The authors

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have addressed all my previous comments, and I have only two minor comments : 

1/ In introduction, the concept of « the man the hunter » is today heavly debated. The authors should be cautious when using these terms. See Lacy 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13914 and Anderson et al 2023  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287101 doi: 10.1126/science.adj4699

 2/ Please provide more exemple of the usefullness of the morphological approach (2.1.4). A quick search on internet with key words « discret traits, burial, kinship » bring several publication to illustrate this, even if not all in the Medieval period, their potential is worth mentioning (https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2020.00083).

 Sincerely,

Author Response

Dear Sirs,

We would like to thank reviewer 2 for her/his careful evaluation and suggestions. We then respond to each comment.

Reviewer 2

1/ In introduction, the concept of « the man the hunter » is today heavly debated. The authors should be cautious when using these terms. See Lacy 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13914 and Anderson et al 2023  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287101 doi: 10.1126/science.adj4699

Thank you for the comment, it is true. Our sentence was not clear, despite we tried to give such perspective by putting the information with “”. We have now included a new sentence, with a reference (lines 33-35).  

 2/ Please provide more exemple of the usefullness of the morphological approach (2.1.4). A quick search on internet with key words « discret traits, burial, kinship » bring several publication to illustrate this, even if not all in the Medieval period, their potential is worth mentioning (https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2020.00083).

 Thank you for the comment, we have now introduced more examples of how the morphological approach can be used to guide kinship analysis (lines 484-497).

The authors are once again grateful for the accurate observations of the reviewer, as they allow for an important improvement in the quality of the article.

We look forward to receiving a positive response concerning the acceptance of our manuscript.

Thank you for your deliberation of this manuscript.

Sincerely,

The authors