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Archaeologists who work in a place in South Wales have uncovered dozens of skeletons – mainly women – who offer a “window into a really poorly understood time in history”.
The skeletons come from the early Middle Ages, which comes from 400 to 1100 AD from a time that is very poorly documented in historical sources and for which we have comparatively only a few archaeological sites, ”said Project Leader Andy Seaman, a reader in early media traffic architecture at Cardiff University, to CNN on Wednesday.
A total of 41 skeletons have so far been excavated, most of whom belong to the women who apparently had a tough existence in agriculture, he said.
They were buried in individual graves and lived around 500 to 600 AD.
“Her daily life seems to have been quite difficult,” said Seemann, adding that researchers have uncovered indications of arthritis and degenerative joint diseases as well as broken bones and healed fractures.
“They were not a very healthy group of people, but they took care of each other,” he said, showing evidence of healed leg fractures and a case of a broken neck, which was believed to be due to agricultural accidents.
It is estimated that the location houses a total of around 80 skeletons. – Cardiff University
Other insights are the fact that despite the proximity of the site to the sea, these people do not seem to have eaten, and also that people lived near the site to even eat and drink even in the cemetery, said Seaman.
Despite the injuries and illnesses found in the remains, the researchers also discovered evidence that some of the people in the graves were high status people who had had contact with the European mainland.
For example, there were fragments of very fine glass drinking vessels that would have been imported from southwestern France, said Seemannan.
“The contrast between the high status material and the bad health of the people is not too surprising,” he said.
“This was a time when the difference between the rich and the poor was not very great, and it seems that everyone was more or less involved in agriculture,” said Seemann.
“It is a high status activity in the cemetery, which does not mean that each one is necessarily a person with a high status,” he added.
Archaeologists have found evidence that the community would have had contact with the European mainland. – Cardiff University
Next, the team plans to examine whether both humans and goods would have traveled between Wales and southwestern France and dig out the rest of the location, in which an estimated around 80 people live in around 80 people.
The organic archeologist Katie Faillace, also based at Cardiff University, said that the work in the cemetery was good.
“We are now in a really exciting phase in which we start to build a more comprehensive picture of the people buried in the cemetery. Our initial isotope work suggests that many of the people have local origins,” she said in a statement published by the university on Wednesday.
“DNA tests were carried out so that our laboratory work will show more details in the coming months.”
As soon as all the remains have been excavated and analyzed, they will be re -established in the cemetery as at the firstberry, and the location is opened for visitors, said Seaman.
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