Dianne Unsain Postdoktor

 I am a zooarchaeologist specialising in the Middle Ages, and more specifically, in social interactions and human-animal-environment relationships in the South of France.

Currently, my research project examines the impact of the Little Ice Age - marked by a significant climatic deterioration that followed a climatically benign period (Medieval Climate Anomaly) - on human populations and animal resources. The aim is to determine, from the food waste produced by different selected socio-economic groups, what repercussions the climatic changes had on breeding practices, feeding behaviours, social structures and sanitary conditions of the population in south-eastern France. The focus will also be on the social extraction of consumers in order to determine whether these changes have had a greater impact on the most modest groups (such as peasants) or whether the consequences have been global and have also affected the highest levels of society.