The mystery of the remains of a medieval girl solved: to prevent the “return” from the grave

An analysis of the remains of a young medieval girl found in England who was buried face down with her ankles tied suggests that extra care was taken to ensure “she could not ‘come back’ from the grave,” the archaeologists said.

A medieval girl was buried face down, possibly with her ankles tied to prevent her from “returning” from the grave.

According to the London Museum of Archeology (MOLA), the corpse of a 15-year-old teenage girl was found in a pit in the territory of an early medieval settlement near the south-eastern English village of Conington in Cambridgeshire.

The excavations were carried out between 2016 and 2018, and the remains of the girl are currently being studied.

While there were no established burial traditions in early medieval England, it was common practice at the time to lay the body of the deceased face up, the museum said in a press release on Monday.

“It is believed that being buried face down was a social expression of ‘otherness’, a burial practice reserved for people considered outside of early medieval society,” the museum says. “This includes those who looked or acted differently from the rest of the community, people with low social status, as well as people who have suffered a violent or unexpected death.”

Osteologists – bone specialists – at the London Museum of Archeology found evidence that the girl had a low social status. They suspect that she died suddenly, as no signs of a long-term serious illness were found in her bones.

Evidence was found that the girl suffered from malnutrition as a child, and analysis of her spine showed that she had a spinal joint disease that could have been exacerbated by heavy physical labor from an early age, according to a press release. .

“This burial provides an interesting, if tragic, glimpse into the realities of life and death for those who were once considered outsiders,” said Don Walker, senior osteologist at the Museum of Archeology London.

“We will probably never know exactly how this young woman was treated by the community in which she grew up, but the way she was buried tells us that she was almost certainly considered different,” he continued.

“In addition to being buried face down at the border, the position of her ankles suggests that they may have been tied together. This implies that the community has taken additional measures to ensure that she cannot “come back from the grave,” the scientist added.

The location of the child’s body also gave importance to the place of her burial. According to a press release, the girl’s body was lowered into a hole that had previously contained a large wooden post for the pen’s entrance gate.

In this, scientists have found similarities with the burial of a woman face down, also in the border ditch of the settlement, at the end of the 8th and 9th centuries, about 30 miles from the place where this incident occurred. This woman, who was believed to have been executed, was missing her arms, head, neck, and part of her spine.

While burial in cemeteries associated with churches was not standard practice at the time, according to the London Museum of Archeology, the borders appear to have been used for “significant or unusual” burials in England during the period.

Radiocarbon dating has been used to show that the child died between 680 and 880 AD, and archaeological work at the site suggests that settlement activity ended there in the 8th and 9th centuries.