Researchers studied the remains of more than 300 individuals from different social backgrounds, buried in three different cemeteries in the city from the 10th to the 14th century.
The Cambridge University team examined bones from a cemetery for working people, a charity hospital where the sick and needy were laid to rest, and an incubator for the rich and every break and break set out a barometer of social inequality to create.
X-ray analysis of the legs revealed different levels of suffering – accident, occupational injury or violence – across the social spectrum.
Of the three sites, remains excavated in St. John the Evangelist’s Hospital – a 12th-century home for the needy – have the fewest fractures. Many residents have skeletons of chronic diseases such as tuberculosis, and would not be able to work.
About 44% of working people had bone fractures, compared to 32% of those who were in the greenhouse and 27% of those who were buried by the hospital. Meanwhile, bone fractures were more common in men (40%) than in women (26%).
“By comparing the skeletal trauma of remains buried in different places in a town like Cambridge, we can determine the dangers of daily life experienced by different spheres of medieval society,” said Jenna Dittmar, lead author of the study, published Monday in the U.S. publication, said. Journal of Physical Anthropology.
“We can see that ordinary workers have a higher risk of injury compared to the brothers and their benefactors or the more sheltered hospital inmates,” said Dittmar, a research fellow at the McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research, Cambridge.
“These were people who worked long hours on heavy manual labor. In the city, people worked on trades such as stone masonry and blacksmithing, or as general laborers. Outside the city, many spent dawn until dusk to crush bones. taking care of livestock, ”she added.
The team found that physical trauma prevailed across the entire social spectrum, but it was the most difficult for the poorest people who had the heaviest of physical labor.
Yet the most extreme injury was noticed in a brother, who both had his femur bone fractures, while violence-related skeletal injuries were found in about 4% of the population.
“We can see this inequality on the legs of the medieval inhabitants of Cambridge. However, severe trauma was common in the social spectrum. Life was the hardest down, but life was hard everywhere,” Dittmar added.