Archaeology blog

 Yazzie Stein

Mr. Roddy

IHSS
October 1, 2021


Inequality Recorded on Bones


When University of Cambridge researchers excavated and examined human remains from three separate burial sites, they came to the conclusion, through skeletal trauma, that social inequality was recorded on these bones quite clearly. These three burial sites were one for ordinary working people, another, a charitable “hospital” for those weak and infirm citizens, and the last, an Augustinian friary for the highest class -- the wealthy and the clergy. By analyzing the bone fractures of the people in each category, the researchers came to the realization that 44% of working people had fractured bones, 32% of those in the friary did, and 27% of those in the hospital burial ground. (male remains - 40% fracture, female remains - 26% fracture.) As these bones were from medieval society, it makes sense that the skeletons each had so much trauma, but it also makes it evident that wealth made a difference in how hazardous one’s daily life was and that ordinary workers had a much higher injury risk. This is often because common workers worked out in the fields, etc. doing bone-crushing manual labor, however, that is not the only common reason for such traumatic injury in medieval Cambridge. Defensive and domestic abuse fractures appeared to have been quite common, for example, an old woman was found in the Parish grounds with excessive fractures over her skeleton - signifying possibly lifelong abuse. From these skeletons, researches could also sometimes tell whether a person had a type of disease that caused their demise. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cultural Anthropology blog

 India Riley Mr.Roddy IHSS September 2, 2021 Anthropology blog     My article was about wildfires. All across the Mediterranean fires are increasingly becoming larger, and more dangerous. This could be due to many different causes, the most likely is human inflicted. Because of climate change the chances of a fire have significantly increased. While farming is practical and beneficial for food, most farming strategies have become more harmful than good for our environment. The chemical pesticides and fertilizers are extremely flammable, with just one spark the entire field could burst into flame within minutes. When dedicating a large amount of land to farmland or cattle range, its safe to assume that at some point that will be engulfed in a fire. Rarely a field could emerge to flames even if a human hasn't touched it, because plants release so much oxygen, too much of any sort of plant could combust to flames during drought seasons or lightning storms significantly...
Read more

Prisoner of The Infidels

  Niko Cantu Mr. Rodey IHSS 21 October 2021 Prisoner of The Infidels 1）Osman’s writing is far more modern than other writings from his time. It has a very direct and straightforward structure and its translation to English is paractly identical to modern English writing. An example of this direct writing was when Osman said “From this, I understood God's will,namly, that my master had no intention of ever granting me freedom”. This sentence for one use I as he refers to himself in the first person, which was not very common during that time.   2) Osman is clearly very connected to his Muslim religon and repedidly mentions Allah throughou the story. A clear example of this use is when he says “I have no money, and no one is going to help me because of Allah''. This is a clear example of how SOman instinctively believes that Allah may not have an effect on his current situation, he thinks of Allah as a part of his daily life.  3) A discussion that Osman had to make was...
Read more

IHSS reading Prisoner of the Infidels Ira Williams

  Ira Williams Mr.Roddy October 27, 2021 IHSS IHSS reading Prisoner of the Infidels Pick a section to note the style of his writing.  How would you characterize it? The writing was very descriptive and rough at the same time, it made you see and picture the things he was going through and realize how bad it was. It was very humbling to read how he was beaten and imprisoned in a cell with his hand and feet shackled, on his stomach too. What role does his religion play in his thinking?  Give an example. He was very risky in what he did because he had is divine wisdom and foresight to guide him, as well as Allah to fall back on . one instance of this is when he “saw” people surrounding the city and so he slid along a frozen lake to another town, where he hid in a barrel. What is a decision that he had to make?  Do you think it was a good one? Why or why not? When he left his old master, I think that he should have stayed, he was treated pretty well, even was given some ...
Read more