Mystery of Welsh medieval cemetery deepens

A medieval cemetery unearthed near Cardiff’s airport continues to confuse archaeologists, since the surrounding mysteries multiply.

The discovery of the site, dating from the sixth or 15th century, was announced last year, with skeleton boxes that meet the lipid in unusual positions with unexpected artifacts.

Now the researchers have learned that almost all those buried in the cemetery are women, and although their bones show signs of wear, which indicates that they carried out a great manual work, there are also surprising signs of wealth and luxury.

Another unexpected has a woman thrown in a district, in marked contrast with all the other people who were buried with great care.

“Every time we think we understand something, something more grows and the image becomes more intriguing,” said Andy Seaman of the University of Cardiff, who leads the project.

Around half of the site, which is located in a non -remarkable field on the land of the Fonmon Castle, has now been excavated.

Until now, researchers have found 39 adult skeletons with tombs carved in the thick limestone rock. Even a complete analysis, but it is believed that everything apart from one is a woman.

“I’m not completely sure what Dr. Seaman said.

“It could be something particular about this community, or it could be perhaps just a cemetery within a broader child or landscape or it could be more men in another part of the cemetery.”

The skeletons of two children have also been found, a surprisingly small number given the high infant mortality of the time. Their burials also have some intriguing characteristics.

“The land that has been used to fill the grave is slightly different from that of adult tombs,” said Dr. Marion Shiner, an archaeologist at the University of Cardiff.

“It is darker and seems more organic, so some time had elapsed between the burial of adults and the burial of the thesis of two children, it is more mystery.”

The artifacts on the site are also added to the puzzle of who these people were.

Ceramic fragments and fine glass and registered in the tombs were probably brought to the cemetery by Feigne people while visiting the dead.

“The glass is strange, and where these are quite significant status sites,” said Dr. Seaman.

“It was a probable fact in Levante, the area of ​​Egypt, and then was manufactured in vessels, we believe, in southern France, and probable came here next to the wine in barrels.”

The presence of these elements suggests that this was not an ordinary community. And each person here has been buried with thorough care, some were placed flat, other crouched, all looks from this to west.

The team still does not know why the woman threw the ITIITTCH was treated so differently, but she believes that it could have been a outcast or criminal.

They have tasks of their bones to the laboratory at the University of Cardiff to try to find more about it.

The osteologist, Dr. Katie Billace, says she believes that the woman was between 30 and 40 years old.

His skeleton shows a fracture cured in his arm, while his tooth was infected and had an abscess, which exhibited the roots and must have a painful leg.

The skeleton also undergoes a more detailed analysis.

The results show that the people buried in the cemetery are not all from the immediate area: they also come from all over wheel and possible from the south -west of England.

The additional DNA analysis will also reveal that any of them was related.

The team is partially interested in the teeth of the skeletons.

Due to the way in which teeth grow, they provide a unique record of everything that some have been from the moment they are destined for their death.

“They have eat a very consistent diet based on many carbohydrates, but not much meat,” said Dr. Bankace. “And that is true from his childhood to his adult hood, and that is something we are seeing throughout the population.

“But I had not fished at all. As soon as the novels leave, we see an absence of fish signals in the diet. It is one of the great mysteries.”

The excavation continues this summer and archaeologists will begin to discover the other half of the cemetery.

Andy Seaman hopes to answer the questions that the site has thrown.

“We hope to tell the history of people within the cemetery, but also the community in general,” he said.

“We know a lot about the life of kings and queens, but much less about common people. And never before we have really been able to explore a single community with so many details and all interesting interrelations.”

But for the moment there are still many contradictions that remain unsolved.