Anal y sis of Human Skel e tal Ma te rial from the Poulton Research Project:

Transcription

1 Poulton Re search Pro ject Anal y sis of Human Skel e tal Ma te rial from the Poulton Research Project: by Ray Car pen ter and Steve Crane December 2003

2 Copy right 2003 This doc u ment is the Copy right of Ray mond Car pen ter and Ste phen Crane who have as serted their right to be iden ti fied as the au thors of the work in ac cor dance with the Copy right, De sign and Pat ent Act 1988.

3 Contents 1. Introduction Cemetery Analysis....1 Location of Burials...1 Orientation of Burials...3 Attitude of Burials....3 Preservation of Bone...3 Burial Practices and Finds...3 Disarticulated Remains and Minimum Number of Individuals (MNI) Demographic and Metrical Analysis...5 Sex...5 Age at Death....6 Stature...6 Other Observed Traits....8 Skeleton Database Conclusions and Suggestions for Further Research Bibliography Appendix 1. Results of Basic Skeletal Analysis...11 Appendix 2. MNI Analysis of Disarticulated Bones from Appendix 3. IT Systems Skeleton Database Graphs...16 Location Plan Page iii

4 Acknowledgements Our sin cere thanks are due to: Mike Em ery, Di rec tor of the Poulton Pro ject, firstly for en cour ag ing our in ter est in ar chae ol ogy and sec ondly for al low ing us to work on his skeletons. Those pro fes sional osteoarchaeologists who have pro vided in for ma tion, ad vice and en cour age ment, no ta bly Gill Dunn, Law rence Stew art Owens, Dave Pep per and An thea Boylston. Many mem bers of the Poulton Pro ject, vol un teers and stu dents who have been in volved in ex ca vat ing and clean ing the skeletons analysed here. Da vid Reece who made a ma jor con tri bu tion to this work by con struct ing a beau ti fully en gi neered osteometric board. Special thanks are due to Hazel Crane, for providing skeletal analysis facilities (including refreshments!). Page iv

5 1. Introduction Between the start of the Poulton Re search Pro ject in 1995 and the end of 2002, 99 hu man skel e tons 1 have been ex ca - vated, to gether with con sid er able quan ti ties of disarticulated bone. A break down by year of ex ca va tion is shown in Ta ble 1. Year Number of Skeletons Excavated re cord ing or anal y sis and is no lon ger ac ces si ble. This left 48 skel e tons (and a large quan tity of disarticulated bone) avail able for anal y sis by the au thors. Given the large amount of ma te rial, there has been no at tempt to per form a de tailed anal y sis of ev ery in di vid ual skel e ton. Ef forts have been con cen trated on mea sur ing the ba sic pa ram e - ters of sex, age at death and stat ure (see Sec tion 3), to - gether with general observations on trauma and pathology. Nev er the less, it has still been pos si ble to ad dress two of the ma jor re search ar eas for the Poulton skel e tal ma te - rial that were pro posed by [Quinney, 1996], namely: A spa tial anal y sis of the re mains. The con struc tion of Min i mum Num ber of In di vid - ual counts and de mo graphic pro files of the remains. After analysis, all human skeletal material will be rebur ied at the Cistercian mon as tery of Mount St. Ber nard, near Loughborough in Leicestershire Unknown 5 Table 1 Breakdown of skeletons excavated by year This rep re sents only a small pro por tion (per haps as lit - tle as 10%) of the to tal num ber of buri als at the Poulton Cha pel site. They may not be a rep re sen ta tive sam ple, since the se lec tion of which skel e tons to ex ca vate has largely been driven by the re quire ments of the over all re search programme: nev er the less, they pro vide a lot of ev i dence for the me di eval pop u la tion of Poulton and how they lived and died. De tailed anal y ses have al ready been per formed on some of the skel e tal ma te rial, as listed below: Skel e ton 1 from 1995: [Quinney, 1996]. All the ma te rial from the 1996 and 1997 ex ca - va tion sea sons, in clud ing 25 skel e tons: [Owens, 1998]. Skel e ton 53 from 1998: [Rob erts, 1998]. Rel e vant data from these re ports has been in cor - po rated into the anal y sis pre sented in this pa per and is ac knowl edged at the ap pro pri ate points in the text. Some of the re main ing skel e tal ma te rial has un for tu - nately been sent for re-burial with out be ing sub ject to any 2. Cemetery Analysis 2.1 Location of Burials Fig ure 1 shows the lo ca tions of all the ex ca vated buri als (a to tal of 66) whose po si tion had been re corded, rel a tive to the cha pel it self (shown in out line) and to the site grid. As al ready noted above, the con cen tra tions of graves are not necessarily significant and the apparently empty spaces on the plan gen er ally in di cate ar eas which have not been excavated. Type of Burial Buried Inside Chapel Buried Outside Chapel Number Proportion Number Proportion Female Adult 9 33% 6 15% Male Adult 4 15% 11 28% Subadult 3 11% 16 41% Unknown 11 41% 6 15% Table 2 - Analysis of burial location by type Ta ble 2 gives a break down of the ar tic u lated buri als by type 2, ac cord ing to whether they were lo cated in side 3 or out side the cha pel. 1 We have defined a skeleton as either (a) a recognisable articulated inhumation, or (b) a skull together with other associated bones (if any). 2 Unknown includes skeletons with insufficient material to classify them as female/male/subadult, those where the evidence is ambiguous, and those for which the material was not available. 3 Includes Skeleton 114 that lies under the wall of the chapel. Page 1

6 TrueN Female Adults Male Adults Subadults Unknown Drawn: RJC Notes 1. Chapel Site grid at 5m intervals Rev: 6.3 Date: 20/11/2003 Figure 1 Location of burials Page 2

7 Analysis of Human Skeletal Material from the Poulton Research Project: Caution is needed when trying to distinguish any trends in this data, for a number of reasons: The number of burials of each type is small. There is a large proportion of burials of unknown type, especially inside the chapel. The size and shape of the chapel has changed during its period of use and burials once outside may now appear to be inside (as evidenced by the burial under the south wall). Based on this sample, we can say that females outnumber males inside the chapel by a ratio of approximately 2:1, while the situation is reversed outside the chapel. However, using the recommended chi-squared test [English Heritage, 2002], this difference between the sexes is not significant at the 5% level. There certainly seems to be no evidence of discrimination against females when it came to being buried in the most favoured locations inside or close to the chapel. Subadults appear to be significantly under-represented inside the chapel, being nearly 4 times more common outside. Such a large discrepancy possibly reflects their lower status in medieval society, but may be simply a consequence of the sampling, preservation or excavation processes. 2.2 Orientation of Burials The burials have generally been closely aligned to the main axis of the chapel, i.e. in an approximately East West direction with the head to the West. This is of course what would be expected for lay persons in a Christian burial ground and confirms that the excavated burials date from the Christian era. The only significant exception was one of the infant burials (Skeleton 105), where the upper part of the body pointed West South West: this could be a consequence of a small body being placed carelessly in a larger grave (perhaps intended for an adolescent or adult?). It is interesting to note that the chapel itself is misaligned by approximately 15 : the West East axis of the chapel lies at a true bearing of approximately 75 rather than the expected 90. This does not appear to be exceptional: [Hoare and Sweet, 2000] studied 183 early medieval churches and found that their orientation ranged from 42 to 128, with 38% deviating by more than Burial Practices and Finds Multiple Burials The burials at Poulton can be very difficult to interpret, because of the disturbances already noted and of the sheer density of burials that overlap and intercut each other. This can be clearly seen in Figure 2, a composite of two separate photographs. At the time the photographs were taken, it was assumed the skull labelled Skeleton 100 beskeleton 95 Skeleton 96 True N Skeleton 97 Grid pin at 120.0E, 19.7N Disarticulated skull: Skeleton 100. (Skull of Skeleton 98 is below.) Disarticulated skull: Skeleton 101 Attitude of Burials All the undisturbed bodies were in the extended supine position. Arms were usually folded, either across the pelvis or across the chest. 2.4 children, which are often very fragile. However, this only applies to a small proportion of the Poulton burials. Unfortunately, a considerable number of the burials have been disturbed to a greater or lesser extent, for the following reasons: Many of the burials are very close to the modern ground surface (as little as 40cm) and have suffered from ploughing and erosion. During the period that the graveyard was in use, new graves were dug that intersected previous burials. Further damage was caused to the site in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by amateur excavations that were more akin to treasure hunting than to archaeology. As a consequence, many of the bones are fragmentary and poorly preserved. Preservation of Bone Where burials have remained undisturbed, the preservation of the bones is generally good, even for the bones of Lower limbs of Skeleton 98 Note Colour variation between photographs is false. Figure 2 Skeletons (excavated 2002) Page 3

8 Analysis of Human Skeletal Material from the Poulton Research Project: longed to Skeleton 98. Only after further excavation was it realised that Skeleton 100 was disarticulated and that the real skull for Skeleton 98 lay underneath. Furthermore, once Skeleton 96 was lifted, another, undisturbed, articulated burial (Skeleton 99) was found immediately underneath. There are a number of multiple burials, especially at the south-western corner of the site. These are most likely to have been family burials, rather than plague pits. rectangular stone at the back of the head. This burial was undisturbed and there is no doubt that the stones were placed there as part of the inhumation process. What purpose these stones served is not clear. Figure 4 shows a cluster of small stones around the skull of Skeleton 103. Given the closeness of the burial to the modern surface, plough damage or disturbance is a possibility and might explain the small size of the stones compared to the other examples. However, it does not explain the presence of the stones in the first place Coffins and Grave Goods Evidence for coffins is very scanty: the Poulton soil does not favour the preservation of wood, but some graves contained heavily corroded iron objects that may be nails or other coffin fitments. However, numerous pins have been found in and around some of the skeletons, indicating shroud burials that would probably have been more common in a poor rural community. There has been very little evidence of personal items being buried with the bodies, as one would expect for Christian burials. A belt buckle was found with one skeleton and a copper alloy petal mount (probably part of some clothing decoration) with another [Emery, 2000: 56] Grave Fills A few of the grave fills contained dateable material such as potsherds. Many of the grave fills contained significant quantities of building stone, plaster, charcoal and slate. For burials within the chapel, some of this material could come from the floor through which the graves were dug, but it is much more difficult to explain for burials which are some distance outside the walls. A number of the burials contained assemblies of stones, predominately around the skull. Three examples show the type of assemblies found. Figure 3 shows Skeleton 99 immediately after the skull had been lifted. There is large L shaped stone that was supporting the right side of the skull and a smaller, Figure 4 Skull of Skeleton 103 This is also another example of the intersecting burials at Poulton. The piece of skull to the right of the picture (below the identification tag) belongs to Skeleton 107. Note also the anomalous formation of the first molar (both left and right) in the mandible; we refer to this below in Section 3.4. Figure 5 shows Skeleton 104 with a number of pieces of local sandstone around the top of the skull. One explanation is that the stones are at the bottom of a modern hole for a fence post. That would certainly explain the stones and the damage to upper skull. However, no evidence was found for such a post-hole during the Figure 5 Skull of Skeleton 104 excavation. 2.6 Figure 3 Skeleton 99 Page 4 Disarticulated Remains and Minimum Number of Individuals (MNI) Because of the disturbances described above, there is a

9 con sid er able amount of disarticulated hu man bone, some of which can be re lated to spe cific con texts and some of which is com pletely un strati fied. [Owens, 1998] per formed a so phis ti cated MNI anal y - sis us ing the ma te rial ex ca vated from 1995 to This de ter mined that, in ad di tion to the 27 in di vid ual skel e tons al ready iden ti fied (Ta ble 1), an other 19 adults and 39 subadults were rep re sented in this ma te rial, giv ing a total of 85 individuals. An MNI anal y sis was also per formed on the disarticulated bone ex ca vated from 1998 on wards and the de tailed re sults are shown in Ap pen dix 2. This ma te rial in - cluded 14 adults and 5 subadults. No at tempt was made to differentiate between male and female remains. Ta ble 3 pro vides a sum mary of the cur rently avail able MNI data: sess ment was then made, tak ing into ac count the greater re li abil ity of some at trib utes [Brothwell, 1981: 62] and not sim ply av er ag ing the scores. This re sulted in an over - all as sess ment of fe male, prob a ble female, ambiguous, probable male or male. In some cases, there was in suf fi cient ma te rial to make any sex de ter mi na tion (shown as in de ter mi nate in Table 5). Nor mally, no at tempt was made to de ter mine the sex of subadults, since there are no gen er ally ac cepted stan dards that do not in volve de struc tive tech niques such as DNA test ing. How ever, in one case, Skeleton 115, the skel e tal ma te rial was clearly suf fi ciently ma ture and was as sessed as fe male. The age was sub se quently de ter mined to be 16 18, that is, post pu berty, and thus old enough to jus tify such an as sess ment. Uniquely, Skel e ton 115 was clas si - Data Set Adult Subadult Un known Ar tic u lated Disarticulated Ar tic u lated Disarticulated Ar tic u lated To tal All ma te rial from [Owens, 1998] Skel e tons from and date un known Disarticulated bone from Any at tempt to de ter mine an over all Min i mum Num - ber of In di vid u als by sim ply add ing to gether the 3 to tals in Ta ble 3 would be in valid. This is be cause there may well be over laps be tween the data sets, e.g. some of the disarticulated bone from may in fact be long to the skel e tons from the same pe riod. More anal y sis is re quired be - fore a re li able MNI can be cal cu lated (see Sec tion 4). Table 3 Minimum number of individuals fied as a fe male subadult. In the anal y ses that fol low, in - for ma tion re lat ing to Skel e ton 115 is in cluded when fe males or subadults are be ing dis cussed but excluded when adults are being discussed. Pelvis Greater Sci atic Notch [Buikstra and Ubelaker, 1994: 18] Sub-Pu bic An gle [Mays, 1998: 34] Preauricular Sulcus [Brothwell, 1981: 60] 3. Demographic and Metrical Analysis 3.1 Sex The sex of adult skel e tons was de ter mined us ing the at trib utes listed in Ta ble 4. As many of these at trib utes as pos si ble were as sessed for each skel e ton, de pend - ing on the avail able bones and their state of pres er va tion. For each at trib ute, a score of 1 (most fe male) to 5 (most male) was as signed us ing the di a grams and charts in the appropriate reference. An overall as - Ven tral Arc [Suther land and Suchey, 1991: 502] Subpubic Con cav ity [Buikstra and Ubelaker, 1994: 17] Ischiopubic Ramus Ridge [Buikstra and Ubelaker, 1994: 17] Skull Nuchal Crest [Buikstra and Ubelaker, 1994: 20] Mastoid Process [Buikstra and Ubelaker, 1994: 20] Supra-Orbital Margin [Buikstra and Ubelaker, 1994: 20] Glabella [Buikstra and Ubelaker, 1994: 20] Mental Eminence [Buikstra and Ubelaker, 1994: 20] Table 4 Techniques for assessing sex Page 5

10 Estimated Sex Num ber of Skel e tons Female 12 Probable Female 8 Am big u ous 1 Indeterminate 4 Prob a ble Male 15 Male 12 Table 5 Results of sex estimation for adult burials The sum ma rised re sults of the sex es ti ma tion for each of the skel e tons are given in Ta ble 5, in cor po rat ing the re - sults of ear lier anal y ses (see Section 1). The fe males (in clud ing probables) make up 43% of those skel e tons which could be sexed and males (in clud - ing probables) 57%. Us ing the rec om mended chi-squared test [Eng lish Her i tage, 2002], this dif fer ence be tween the sexes is not sig nif i cant at the 5% level. 3.2 Age at Death Ta ble 6 shows the range of tech niques used to es tab lish age at death for each of the skel e tons, de pend ing on the stage of de vel op ment of the in di vid ual. Fi nally, the re sults from pre vi ous anal y ses (see Sec - tion 1) were in cor po rated to cre ate a data set for all ex ca - vated skeletons. Fig ure 6 shows the dis tri bu tion of age at death for both adults and subadults ir re spec tive of sex, while Fig ure 7 shows the data for adults only, sub di vided by sex. Both fig ures also show the num bers of skel e tons which could not be as signed to an age band, be cause the ap pro pri ate skel e tal ma te rial was un avail able or was too badly dam - aged (though it was pos si ble in ev ery one of these cases to de ter mine whether the in di vid ual was an adult or a subadult). The pro por tion of in fant (<5 years) deaths is high by mod ern stan dards, at 18% of those for which an age could be de ter mined. The true pro por tion may be even higher, since the re mains of youn ger subadults may be over - looked dur ing ex ca va tion and are more prone to taphonomic dam age than adult re mains [Mays, 1998: 15 & 22]. There is an other peak of deaths in the years age range, though of course this is the broad est cat e gory. A rea son able num ber of in di vid u als (largely male) ap - pear to have sur vived past 45 years: this could be even higher if, as sug gested by [Molleson and Cox, 1993], the tech niques used un der es ti mate adult age at death by up to years. There may also be some sex bias in the tech - Children De vel op ment of the de cid u ous and per ma nent dentition [Brothwell, 1981: 64 65]. Adolescents De vel op ment of the dentition [as above] Fu sion of the epiphyses [Mays, 1998: 48]. Adults Den tal wear [Brothwell, 1981: 72]. While the de vel op ment of the pu bic symphysis is com monly used to de ter mine age, it was not ap plied to the Poulton skel e tons: a) be cause these bones were of ten too dam aged to be used, and b) be cause it has been shown to per form poorly on ar chae o log i cal ma te rial, es pe cially when cal i brated us ing a dif fer ent ref er ence pop u la tion, e.g. [Mays, 1998: 55] and [Molleson and Cox, 1993: ]. Table 6 Techniques for assessing age at death Adults were as signed to the fol low ing broad banded age cat e go ries [Mc Kin ley and Rob erts, 1993]: Young Adult: years Ma ture Adult: years Older Adult: >45 years Subadults, who can be aged with greater pre ci sion, were as signed to the fol low ing cat e go ries: <5 years 5 9 years years years niques ap plied here: for ex am ple, at the me di eval site of Wharram Percy [Mays, 1998: 71], 40% of the adults lived to over 50 and the pro por tion of fe males liv ing to this age was much closer to the pro por tion of males (though still smaller). 3.3 Stature For adult skel e tons, stat ure was de ter mined by mea sur ing the lengths of the long bones (fe mur, tibia, fib ula, hu - merus, ra dius and ulna) with an osteometric board and ap - ply ing the Amer i can White re gres sion for mu lae of Page 6

11 Number Nu m b e r < >45 Unaged Adults Age in Years Figure 6 - Age at death for adults and subadults irrespective of sex Female Adults Male Adults Unsexed Adults >45 Unaged Age in Years Figure 7 - Age at death for adults by sex Trot ter and Gleser [Brothwell, 1981: 101]. Where bones were bro ken but all pieces were pres ent and fit ted cleanly to gether, they were tem po rarily re-as sem bled and mea - sured. The set of re gres sion for mu lae used de pends on the sex of the in di vid ual. For each skel e ton, the stat ure was cal cu lated us ing as many as pos si ble of the re gres sion for - mu lae, de pend ing on the avail able bones. The var i ous es - ti mates were com pared to check that there were no gross er rors (e.g. a mis take in tak ing the mea - sure ment, or the use of a bone from the wrong skel e ton) and an av er age height was cal cu lated for each side (left and right). Fi nally, these were averaged to give an overall height. Where more than one es ti mate can be cal cu lated, some sources rec om - Unaged Subadults mend that only the one with the small est stan dard er ror should be used, rather than an av er age. How ever, the stan dard er rors of each of the for mu lae are very sim i lar at around 4cm [Applegate, 2002], so it was judged ap pro pri ate to use all the available data. Al though stat ure cal cu la - tions had al ready been per - formed on some of the ear li est ma te rial (as de scribed in Sec tion 1), heights were re-cal cu lated for all these skel e tons us ing the same prin ci ples as out lined above. This en sured that the stat - ure es ti mates were di rectly com - pa ra ble and also took ad van tage of all the avail able long bone mea sure ments. In [Rob erts, 1998] the stat ure of Skel e ton 53 was re ported as 1.82m (the tall - est skeleton yet excavated). How ever, this was in cor rectly con verted into im pe rial units as 6' 4", rather than the true value of 6' 0". Un for tu nately, this er ror has been perpetuated in many other publications. Stat ure could only be cal cu - lated for 35 of the adult skel e - tons, for which rel a tively in tact long bones were avail able and for which the sex could be de ter - mined (since the set of re gres - sion for mu lae used de pends on the sex of the in di vid ual). No at tempt was made to de ter mine the stat ure of subadults, as child hood diaphysial length re flects de vel - op ment rather than chro no log i cal age. Fig ure 8 shows the height dis tri bu tion sub di vided by sex and grouped into 5cm bands. The stat ure data is sum ma rised in Ta ble 7. Both male and fe male av er age heights are typ i cal for the me di eval pe riod [Boylston and Weston, 2001; Rob erts Sex Mean Range Stan dard De vi a tion Num ber of In di vid u als Male 1.72m / 5' 7.7" m 0.06m 18 Female 1.59m / 5' 2.6" m 0.05m 17 Table 7 Summary of adult stature Page 7

12 Number Females Males < and Man ches ter, 1995: 27]. It is also no tice able that there is very lit tle over lap be tween the fe male and male height ranges. In 4 cases, suf fi cient skel e tal ma te rial was avail able to per form a height es ti ma tion but the sex was am big u ous or in de ter mi nate. These are shown in Table 8. Skelelton Male Height (m) Figure 8 - Adult height Height (m) if Female Table 8 Stature of unsexed adults Us ing the data from Ta bles 7 and 8, there is a strong sug ges tion that Skel e tons 83 and 125 are male, based purely on their height. 3.4 Other Observed Traits Any ob vi ous ab nor mal i ties of the skel e ton were re corded, for pos si ble fur ther in ves ti ga tion at a later stage. This made no pre tence at be ing a com pre hen sive anal y sis. Al though no de tailed re cords of the dentition were made, casual examination revealed that dental disease was com mon, in clud ing ante-mor tem tooth loss, car ies, cal cu - lus and ab scesses. Skel e tons 83, 103 and 114 all ex hib ited anom a lous molar formation. Skel e tons 50 and 112 showed sacralization of the fifth lum bar ver te bra. [Brothwell, 1981: 109] sug gests that this may be ev i dence of a close re la tion ship be tween the in di >1.85 vid u als concerned. Skel e ton 112 shows ev i - dence of pos si ble con gen i tal dis - lo ca tion of the hip joints. Apart from the cases orig i - nally re corded by [Owens, 1998] and [Rob erts, 1998], no ad di tional in stances of trauma were de tected. 3.5 Skeleton Database The re sults of these anal y ses have been stored in a com put er - ised da ta base. This is not in - tended to re place the ex ist ing pa per-based re cord ing sys tem, but to as sist in the rapid anal y sis of the con sid er able quan tity of data that has been col lected and gen er ated. For ex am ple, the da ta base has been used to au to mat i cally cre ate plans show ing the lo ca tions of the buri als (as in Sec tion 2.1) and graphs of age dis tri bu tion (as in Sec tion 3.2). De tails of the skel e ton da ta base are given in Ap pen dix Conclusions and Suggestions for Further Research Ninety-nine hu man skel e tons have been ex ca vated at the Poulton cha pel site be tween 1995 and the end of 2002, to - gether with large quan ti ties of disarticulated bone. They are all be lieved to date from the me di eval pe riod, though no pre cise dates have yet been de ter mined. Many of the buri als have been con sid er ably dis turbed, of ten by other buri als, mak ing anal y sis and in ter pre ta tion more com plex. All of the un dis turbed buri als are aligned ap prox i mately East West, with the head to the West and in an ex tended supine position. There is some ev i dence for shroud buri als and many of the grave fills con tained sig nif i cant quan ti ties of build ing ma te rial. It is not easy to ex plain all of this build ing ma te - rial for graves in side the cha pel and quite dif fi cult for those outside. Fe males pre dom i nate over males in side the cha pel, while the re verse is true out side. Subadults are sig nif i - cantly under-represented inside the chapel. However, all these find ings should be treated with cau tion due to the rel a tively small num ber of buri als whose po si tion had been re corded and that could be de fin i tively clas si fied as male, female or subadult. Osteological data was al ready avail able ([Owens, 1998], [Quinney, 1996] and [Rob erts, 1998]), or was gen - er ated by the pres ent au thors, for 75 skel e tons. The ba sic pa ram e ters of sex, age at death and stat ure were as sessed Page 8

13 Unsexed Adult 5% Subadult 24% Female Adult 19% Figure 9 Summary of excavated skeletons for all those skel e tons for which the nec es sary ma te rial was avail able. A sum mary of the skel e ton pop u la tion is shown in Fig ure 9. All re sults should be treated with some cau tion be - cause of po ten tial sam pling er rors. How ever, key points in clude: There is an over all pre dom i nance of males but this is not statistically significant. The pro por tion of in fant (<5 years) deaths is 18%. 21% (mainly males) lived more than 45 years. Av er age stat ure was 1.72m for males and 1.59m Unknown 24% Male Adult 28% for fe males, with very lit tle over lap be tween the height ranges of the two sexes. Based on the avail able ev i dence, the Poulton burials appear to represent a typical rural medi - eval pop u la tion with no ab nor mal i ties in de mo - graphic, met ri cal or pathological terms. The large amount of ma te rial avail able at Poulton of fers con sid er able op por tu ni ties for fur ther re search, if the nec es sary re sources can be made available: The Min i mum Num ber of In di vid u als anal y sis could be com pleted by count ing all the key bone por tions for the ar tic u lated skel e tons ex - ca vated in and com bin ing these with all the other data sets. Anal y sis should be car ried out to de ter mine sex ual met rics for the Poulton pop u la tion (e.g. using femoral head diameter and sacral index) and hence to at tempt the sex de ter mi na tion of oth er wise unsexed skeletons. A de tailed cat a logue of all the avail able skel e - tons should be com piled, in clud ing den tal records. All the avail able re mains should be ex am ined by an ex pert to as sess the ex tent of den tal dis ease, skel e tal pa thol ogy, trauma, in fec tion and met a - bolic diseases. A pop u la tion bi ol ogy study of ge netic in di ca tors should ex am ine re gional af fin i ties and fam ily relationships. A care fully se lected sam ple of skel e tons should be 14 Car bon dated in or der to re late the burial se - quences to the his tor i cal re cord. Page 9

14 5. Bibliography Applegate, D West ern Ken tucky Uni ver sity Anth 300 Fo ren sic An thro pol ogy Lab 10: Stat - ure Estimation. Vis ited 30 March Boylston, A. and Weston, D Brothwell, D.R Buikstra, J.E. and Ubelaker, D.H. (eds.) 1994 Chamberlain, A Carpenter, R.J. and Crane, S.A Emery, M.M Emery, M.M., Gibbins, D.J.L, and Matthews, K.J English Heritage, 2002 Hoare, P.G. and Sweet, C.S Mays, S McKinley, J.I. and Roberts, C Molleson, T. and Cox, M Owens, L.S Quinney, P.S Roberts, C Roberts, C. and Manchester, K Sutherland, L.D. and Suchey J.M Workshop of European Anthropologists 1980 Friar s Gate, Warrington (L99/101): Re port on the Hu man Skel e tal Re mains. Cal vin Wells Lab o ra tory, Uni ver sity of Brad ford. Dig ging Up Bones (3rd ed.). Brit ish Mu seum (Nat u ral His tory), Lon don. Stan dards for Data Col lec tion from Hu man Skel e tal Re mains. Archaeological Survey Research Series No. 44, Arkansas. In ter pret ing the Past: Hu man Re mains. Brit ish Mu seum, Lon don. Poulton Re search Pro ject Skel e ton Man ual. Poulton Re search Pro ject, Chester. The Poulton Chron i cles. Poulton Ar chae ol ogy Press, Williamsburg. The Archaeology of an Ecclesiastical Landscape. Chester City Council, Chester. Hu man Bones from Ar chae o log i cal Sites: Guide lines for pro duc ing as sess ment doc u ments and an a lyt i cal re ports. Eng lish Her i tage, Swindon. The Ori en ta tion of Early Me di eval Churches in Eng land. Jour nal of His tor i cal Ge og ra phy, 26(2): The Ar chae ol ogy of Hu man Bones. Routledge, Lon don. Ex ca va tion and Post-Ex ca va tion Treat ment of Cre mated and Inhumed Hu man Re mains. In sti tute of Field Ar chae ol o gists Tech ni cal Pa per No. 13, Birmingham. The Spitalfields Pro ject Vol ume 2: The An thro pol ogy. CBA Re search Re port 86. Coun cil for Brit ish Ar chae ol ogy, York. An Anal y sis of Hu man Skel e tal Ma te rial from the Mediaeval Site of Poulton Cha pel, Cheshire. M.Sc. The sis, Liv er pool Uni ver sity. Phys i cal An thro pol ogy and Osteology of Skel e ton (108). In Em ery, M.M., Gibbins, D.J.L. and Matthews, K.J The Ar chae ol ogy of an Ecclesiastical Landscape. Chester City Council, Chester. Re port on Skel e tal Re mains of One In di vid ual from Poulton Cha pel, Cheshire. Vis ited 30 March The Ar chae ol ogy of Dis ease (2nd ed.). Sutton Pub lish ing, Stroud. Use of the Ven tral Arc in Pu bic Sex De ter mi na tion. Jour nal of Fo ren sic Sci ences, 36(2): Rec om men da tions for Age and Sex Di ag no ses of Skel e tons. Jour nal of Hu man Evo lu tion, 9: Page 10

15 Ap pen di ces Appendix 1. Results of Basic Skeletal Analysis The re sults for all ex ca vated skel e tons are sum ma rised in Ta ble 9 Skeleton No Skeleton Context Adult/ Subadult Sex Age at Death Minimum Maximum Units Height (m) Source Adult Female Years 1.5 [Quinney, 1996] Adult Male Indet Indet 1.55 [Owens, 1998] Adult Male Years Indet [Owens, 1998] Adult Male Years 1.76 [Owens, 1998] Adult Female Years 1.62 [Owens, 1998] Adult Male Years 1.74 [Owens, 1998] Subadult Indet 2 9 Years Indet [Owens, 1998] Subadult Indet Indet Indet Indet [Owens, 1998] Subadult Indet 7 12 Years Indet [Owens, 1998] Adult Male Years 1.66 [Owens, 1998] Adult Male Years Indet [Owens, 1998] Adult Female Years 1.55 [Owens, 1998] Subadult Indet 7 17 Years Indet [Owens, 1998] Subadult Indet 7 10 Years Indet [Owens, 1998] Adult Male Years 1.69 [Owens, 1998] Adult Male Years 1.73 [Owens, 1998] Subadult Indet 9 15 Years Indet [Owens, 1998] Subadult Indet Indet Indet Indet [Owens, 1998] Adult Male Years 1.69 [Owens, 1998] Adult Male Years Indet [Owens, 1998] Adult Ambig Years Indet [Owens, 1998] Adult Male Years 1.74 [Owens, 1998] Subadult Indet 4 5 Years Indet [Owens, 1998] Subadult Indet 8 8 Years Indet [Owens, 1998] Adult Male 55 Indet Years Indet [Owens, 1998] Subadult Indet 3 4 Years Indet [Owens, 1998] Adult Female 25 Indet Years 1.64 Carpenter & Crane Adult Male 45 Indet Years 1.74 Carpenter & Crane Page 11

16 Skeleton No Skeleton Context Adult/ Subadult Sex Age at Death Minimum Maximum Units Height (m) Source Subadult Ambig Years Indet Carpenter & Crane Adult Male Years 1.69 Carpenter & Crane Subadult Indet 6 16 Months Indet Carpenter & Crane Adult Male 45 Indet Years 1.75 Carpenter & Crane Adult Male Years 1.82 [Roberts, 1998] Adult Ambig Years Indet Carpenter & Crane Subadult Indet 8 16 Months Indet Carpenter & Crane Adult Female Years 1.61 Carpenter & Crane Adult Male 20 Indet Years 1.73 Carpenter & Crane Adult Male Years 1.79 Carpenter & Crane Adult Ambig Years Indet Carpenter & Crane Adult Male Years 1.71 Carpenter & Crane Adult Male 16 Indet Years 1.69 Carpenter & Crane Adult Female 21 Indet Years 1.66 Carpenter & Crane Subadult Indet 8 16 Months Indet Carpenter & Crane Subadult Indet 3 9 Months Indet Carpenter & Crane Subadult Indet 2 6 Years Indet Carpenter & Crane Adult Female Years 1.63 Carpenter & Crane Adult Male Years 1.82 Carpenter & Crane Adult Indet Indet Indet Indet Carpenter & Crane Adult Female 21 Indet Years 1.56 Carpenter & Crane Adult Male 19 Indet Years Indet Carpenter & Crane Adult Female Years 1.53 Carpenter & Crane Adult Female Years 1.62 Carpenter & Crane Adult Female Years 1.6 Carpenter & Crane Subadult Indet Indet 16 Years Indet Carpenter & Crane Adult Female Indet Indet Indet Carpenter & Crane Adult Female Years 1.62 Carpenter & Crane Adult Female Years 1.57 Carpenter & Crane Subadult Indet Indet 18 Years Indet Carpenter & Crane Subadult Indet 6 12 Months Indet Carpenter & Crane Subadult Indet Indet 16 Years Indet Carpenter & Crane Subadult Indet 7 10 Years Indet Carpenter & Crane Page 12

17 Skeleton No Skeleton Context Adult/ Subadult Sex Age at Death Minimum Maximum Units Height (m) Source Adult Female 21 Indet Years 1.62 Carpenter & Crane Adult Male Years Indet Carpenter & Crane Adult Female Years 1.63 Carpenter & Crane Adult Female Years 1.55 Carpenter & Crane Adult Female Years Indet Carpenter & Crane Subadult Female Years Indet Carpenter & Crane Adult Female Years 1.53 Carpenter & Crane Adult Male 17 Indet Years 1.72 Carpenter & Crane Adult Male Indet Indet Indet Carpenter & Crane Adult Male Indet Indet Indet Carpenter & Crane Adult Male Indet Indet Indet Carpenter & Crane Subadult Indet Months Indet Carpenter & Crane Adult Ambig 45 Indet Years Indet Carpenter & Crane Subadult Indet 3 5 Years Indet Carpenter & Crane Table 9 Results of Basic Skeletal Analysis Notes: Indet means In de ter mi nate; Ambig means Am big u ous. Where the source is shown as Car pen ter & Crane, this in di cates that the anal y sis was car ried out by the au thors, and is pub lished here for the first time. Where the source is shown as [Owens, 1998], sex and age data was taken from that source, but the height data was re - cal cu lated by the au thors as ex plained in Sec tion 3.3. The range of skel e ton num bers is greater than the to tal num ber of skel e tons ex ca vated (Sec tion 1), be cause some skel e tons which have been as signed num bers have not yet been ex ca vated, and also be cause, in the early days of the pro ject, skel e ton num bers were as signed to some con cen tra tions of bones which were later in ter preted as char nel pits or groups of el e ments from dis turbed buri als [Owens, 1998: 10]. Page 13

18 Appendix 2. MNI Anal y sis of Disar tic u lated Bones from All the avail able disarticulated bones from the This anal y sis was per formed sep a rately for adult and ex ca va tions were ex am ined, and the num bers of var i ous subadult bones. key bone por tions were counted. These por tions were cho - The key bone por tions are shown in Ta ble 10 (for sen as be ing those which: adults) and Ta ble 11 (for subadults), to gether with the Were gen er ally well pre served in the ma te rial be - num bers of each which could be iden ti fied. The Min i mum ing ana lysed. Num ber of In di vid u als (MNI) is then cal cu lated as the Were iden ti fi able even for bones in bad con di tion. larg est of these num bers, i.e. 14 for adults and 5 for Were dis tinc tive enough to mini mise the risk of subadults in this data set. dou ble count ing. Key Bone Por tion Left Right Prox i mal Dis tal Prox i mal Dis tal Mastoid 11 9 Nuchal Crest 7 Up per Or bit 4 4 Man di ble 11 9 Mental Eminence 14 Clavicle Hu merus Radius Ulna Sacrum 3 Pu bic Symphysis 4 3 Fe mur Tibia Fib ula Table 10 Results of MNI analysis for disarticulated bones: Adults Page 14

19 Key Bone Portion Left Right Proximal Distal Proximal Distal Mastoid 0 0 Nuchal Crest 1 Upper Orbit 0 0 Mandible 1 1 Mental Eminence 0 Clavicle Humerus Radius Ulna Sacrum 0 Pubic Symphysis 0 1 Femur Tibia Fibula Table 11 Results of MNI analysis for disarticulated bones: Subadults Page 15

20 Appendix 3. IT Sys tems As both of the au thors earn their liv ing in the IT in dus try, it is not sur pris ing that IT sys tems have been de vel oped and used in pro cess ing the skel e ton data. Appendix 3.1 Skeleton Database The heart of the sys tem is a Skel e ton Da ta base cre ated us - ing Microsoft Ac cess Al though sur rounded by nu mer ous an cil lary tasks and datasets, in for ma tion about the skel e tons is stored in five main ta bles: Master Data Post-Ex ca va tion Data Plans As so ci ated Con texts Nominal Values The Master Data ta ble con tains most of the in for ma - tion from the skel e ton re cord ing sheet such as the skel e ton num ber, skel e ton con text num ber, the site grid lo ca tion, date of lift ing, etc, to gether other use ful in for ma tion such as the cur rent lo ca tion of each skel e ton (e.g. in store or at Mount St. Ber nard), in how many boxes it is stored and whether it has been cleaned. The Post-Ex ca va tion Data ta ble con tains the sum - mary re sults from the post ex ca va tion anal y sis: sex, age and height es ti ma tions. To date, the au thors have re sisted the temp ta tion to in clude the full de tailed in for ma tion from the post ex ca va tion anal y sis (e.g. in di vid ual long bone mea sure ments); that data re mains on pa per re cords. Nevertheless, the post excavation analysis sheet was pre - pared with that pos si bil ity in mind and such an en hance - ment is likely, given suf fi cient time. The Plans ta ble con tains in for ma tion about each plan that shows a skel e ton. As any in di vid ual skel e ton may be shown on more than one plan, this in for ma tion is held sep - a rately from the Mas ter Data. The As so ci ated Con texts table contains information about other con texts as so ci ated with a skel e ton. Nor mally each skel e ton has two as so ci ated con texts, the grave cut and the grave fill. How ever, given the in ter sect ing na ture of the buri als at Poulton, there may be more than one cut or fill context associated with any particular skeleton. To deal with this situation, the associated context information is held sep a rately from the Mas ter Data. All the above ta bles con tain static data. That is, the data is en tered and main tained by hand. How ever, to per - mit fur ther anal y sis and cate gori sa tion, an au to matic pro - cess with a man ual mod i fi ca tion ca pa bil ity was pro vided. That pro cess cre ates the Nom i nal Val ues ta ble. The prob - lem pri mar ily lies around the age es ti mates and their cate - gori sa tion. Most post-ex ca va tion anal y ses pro duce an age range that we have de lim ited by a min i mum and max i mum age. How ever, to pro cess the data fur ther, for ex am ple, to cate - go rise a skel e ton as an adult or subadult, it is nec es sary to re duce this age to a sin gle value. If both the min i mum and max i mum ages can be es tab lished, this sin gle age (the Nom i nal Age) is the mean value of the min i mum and max - i mum ages. Un for tu nately, due to the avail abil ity of skel e - tal ma te rial or its quality, it is some times only pos si ble to es tab lish ei ther a min i mum or max i mum age (oc ca sion - ally, nei ther). In such a case, hu man judge ment is re quired to as sign a nom i nal age to be able to cate go rise the skel e - ton. As a form of au dit, any nom i nal data that is mod i fied man u ally is logged within the da ta base. The au to matic pro cess cur rently achieves about a 95% suc cess rate on cre at ing a cor rect nom i nal age leav ing only a small num - ber (less than 10) to be cor rected by hand. We are con tin u - ing to im prove the al go rithm but we fully ex pect the law of di min ish ing re turns to set in very quickly. Appendix 3.2 Graphs All the graphs used in this re port were cre ated us ing Microsoft Ex cel The source of the data is the Skel - e ton da ta base de scribed above. The data is cop ied elec - tron i cally into pre-pre pared Ex cel spread sheets, which pro vide more con ve nient data-anal y sis (e.g. dis tri bu tion analysis) and graphing facilities. We claim no originality for the tech niques and meth ods used. Appendix 3.3 Lo ca tion Plan The lo ca tion plan is pro duced by the com bi na tion of two pro grams: a Com puter Aided Draw ing (CAD) pack age, AutoDesk Autosketch Re lease 8 and a map ping/sur vey - ing pack age, CMT CogoCAD V2.3. The static data on the plan, such as the site grid and the out line of the cha pel, are pro duced by stan dard CAD tech niques. Over lay ing the burial lo ca tion data is more com plex. The raw lo ca tion data is ob tained from the Skel e ton da ta base, fil tered by the cat e gory re quired (e.g. male adult, subadult, etc.). Each data set is then pro cessed by the CogoCAD pro gram to pro duce a CAD com pat i ble out put. Fi nally, Autosketch is re-used to merge the static data with the dy namic burial data to pro duce the com - posite picture. Page 16