The lives and deaths of young medieval women: the osteological evidence

Shapland, F., Lewis, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6224-0278 and Watts, R. (2016) The lives and deaths of young medieval women: the osteological evidence. Medieval Archaeology, 59 (1). pp. 272-289. ISSN 1745-817X doi: 10.1080/00766097.2015.1119392

Abstract/Summary

Written sources from the medieval period focus mainly on the activities of adults, particularly males and often those from the wealthier sections of society. Recent scholarship has attempted to redress this balance by giving attention to medieval women and children, but we are still limited by what we can learn about the daily lives of all members of medieval English society. Osteology, the study of human skeletal remains, suffers from no such bias and can provide substantial and detailed information on growth, health and daily life of the general population. This paper presents the results of a new analysis of the skeletal remains of over 300 medieval girls and young women aged at between 14 and 25 years from a number of English cemetery sites. We incorporate data from the published archaeological literature as well as documentary evidence to provide new insights into the lives and deaths of young medieval women.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/50813
Identification Number/DOI	10.1080/00766097.2015.1119392
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Scientific Archaeology Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Department of Archaeology
Publisher	Taylor & Francis
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