Medieval skeletons show social inequality ‘etched in bones’

The remains of Cambridge, England, dated 10 centuries ago reveal social inequalities etched in the bones of residents.

The researchers studied the skeletons of 314 people who lived between the 10th and 14th centuries, carefully cataloging each break and fracture to correlate social strata with the risk of skeletal trauma. The results, published Monday in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, contribute to the understanding of economic and physical difficulties in medieval Europe – and demonstrate once again how much the archaeological record can tell us about the daily lives of our ancestors.

Last year, for example, archaeologists analyzed skeletons of two men who reportedly died while fleeing the deadly eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii almost 2,000 years ago. The youngest of the men had compressed spinal discs, leading archaeologists to assume that he may have done manual labor as a slave.

The bones in the Cambridge study come from three very different cemeteries that house the remains of residents from across the social spectrum: a parish cemetery for the working poor; a charity hospital that housed the sick and needy; and an Augustinian convent that kept the remains of wealthy donors alongside the clergy. The workers buried in the parish cemetery, called Todos os Santos by the Castle, suffered the most, probably as a result of injuries suffered while working in agriculture and construction. These fields involved working with heavy plows drawn by horses or oxen and carrying stone blocks and wooden beams around the city.

“These were people who spent their days working long hours doing heavy manual labor. In the city, people worked in trades and trades, as a bricklayer and blacksmith, or as general workers,” said study director Jenna Dittmar, from the Department of Archeology Cambridge University said in a statement. “Outside the city, many spent dawn to dusk doing bone-crushing work in the fields or taking care of cattle.”

In the 13th century, Cambridge was an economically prosperous commercial city and an inland river port, the vast majority of the residents of which were workers. Using X-ray analysis, Dittmar and other researchers found that 44% of workers who studied had bone fractures, compared with 32% of those buried in the convent and 27% of those buried in the hospital. Fractures were more common in male remains (40%) than female ones (26%) at all burials, a finding consistent with previous research indicating that medieval men were at a higher risk of injury compared to medieval women.

But it was not just full-time workers who showed signs of significant physical trauma. Although the friars of the time spent most of their time engaged in spiritual activities and studies, they also took on daily tasks to maintain their monasteries. A man detailed in the research, identified as a friar by the belt buckle and the burial site, showed complete fractures halfway to the thigh bones, an extreme injury that may have caused his death.

The researchers suspect a cart accident. “Perhaps a horse got scared and was hit by the cart,” said Dittmar.

Not all fractures resulted from accidental injuries. The researchers observed skeletal injuries related to violence in about 4% of the population, including women and people from all social groups.

One friar showed defensive fractures of the arm and signs of head trauma. And a woman buried in the parish grounds seemed to have marks of domestic violence throughout her life – several of her ribs were broken, as were several vertebrae, her jaw and her foot.

“She had many fractures, all healed well before her death,” said Dittmar. “It would be very unusual for all of these injuries to occur as a result of a fall, for example. Today, the vast majority of broken jaws seen in women are caused by intimate partner violence.”

Together, the hundreds of skeletons tell a story of widespread difficulties.

“Life was more difficult down there,” said Dittmar, “but all life was difficult.”