Unearthed skeletons reveal tough lives of Early Medieval women

A total of 41 skeletons have been excavated so far, the majority of which belong to women who appear to have had a tough existence working in agriculture.

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London (CNN) — Archaeologists working at a site in south Wales have uncovered dozens of skeletons – mostly women – which offer a “window into a really poorly understood period of history.”

Dating from the Early Medieval era, which ran from 400 to 1100 AD, the skeletons are from “a period which is very poorly documented in historical sources, and for which we have comparatively few archaeological sites,” project leader Andy Seaman, a reader in early mediaeval archaeology at Cardiff University, told CNN on Wednesday.

A total of 41 skeletons have been excavated so far, the majority of which belong to women who appear to have had a tough existence working in agriculture, he said.

They were buried in individual graves and lived around 500 to 600 AD.

“Their daily life appears to have been quite hard,” said Seaman, adding that researchers have uncovered evidence of arthritis and degenerative joint diseases, as well as broken bones and healed fractures.

“They weren’t a very healthy bunch of individuals, but they were caring for each other,” he said, citing evidence of healed leg fractures and one instance of a broken neck, believed to have resulted from agricultural accidents.

Other findings include the fact that these people don’t appear to have eaten fish, despite the site’s close proximity to the sea, and also that people would have lived close to the site, perhaps even eating and drinking within the cemetery, Seaman said.

Despite the injuries and disease detected on the remains, researchers also uncovered evidence that some of the people within the graves were high-status individuals who would have had contact with mainland Europe.

For example, there were fragments of very fine glass drinking vessels that would have been imported from southwestern France, Seaman said.

“The contrast between the high status material and the poor health of the individuals is not too surprising,” he explained.

“This was a period in which the difference between the rich and the poor wasn’t very great, and it seems like everybody was involved to a greater or lesser extent in agriculture,” said Seaman.

“It’s high status activity happening within the cemetery, that doesn’t need to mean that every individual is necessarily a high status person,” he added.

Next, the team plans to research whether people, as well as goods, would have traveled between Wales and southwestern France, as well as excavating the rest of the site, which is estimated to be home to the remains of around 80 people in total.

Bioarchaeologist Katie Faillace, also based at Cardiff University, said work at the cemetery is progressing well.

“We’re at a really exciting stage now, where we’re starting to build up a fuller picture of the people buried at the cemetery. Our initial isotopic work suggests many of the people have local origins,” she said in a statement published by the university on Wednesday.

“DNA tests have been taken so our lab work will reveal more details in the coming months.”

Once all of the remains have been excavated and analyzed, they will be reinterred at the cemetery as they would have been when they were first buried, and the site will be opened to visitors, Seaman said.

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