Bones ‘show tough life of medieval women’
Dec 18th, 2009
From the Guardian: Bones find from abandoned village ‘show tough life of medieval women’.
The fearsome northern woman of legend and cliche, broadchested and with a frying pan poised to whack sense into her man, has proved to have genuine historic origins.
Analysis of bones from Britain’s biggest medieval excavation has unearthed a race of real-life Nora Battys, ruling a Yorkshire roost nearly 1,000 years ago.
Skeletons from Wharram Percy, a village on the Yorkshire Wolds abandoned after the 14th century Black Death, have much larger bones than those of contemporaries elsewhere. [continue]
OK, it seems to confirm “common sense” understanding that a life of intense and unrelenting physical labor often leads to increased bone (and muscle) growth. Not quite sure how this is news, even as archeological confirmation of a phenomenon observable in any city. Nor is any evidence presented that men of the village were relatively more puny: surely the same excesses (by today’s standards) of physical labor would show the same result[s]?
Interesting, yes, but disappointing as well. Surely other things were learned at the site.