Researchers Recreate Face Of 700-Year-Old Man
- 7 years ago
Woefully little is known about the day-to-day experiences of the poor during the Middle Ages. Researchers working with the University of Cambridge intend to change that.
Much has been discovered about the lives of the Middle Ages elite, but woefully little is known about the day-to-day experiences and living conditions of the poor.
Researchers working with the University of Cambridge intend to change that.
A team in the U.K. recently studied and reconstructed the facial features of a 700-year-old skeleton found buried beneath the university's Old Divinity School of St John’s College and say the endeavor has provided great insights into what it was like to be destitute in Medieval times.
John Robb, one of the researchers involved, commented that the individual, currently named Context 958, “was probably an inmate of the Hospital of St John, a charitable institution which provided food and a place to live for a dozen or so indigent townspeople.”
Through the study of the man’s bones and teeth, the researchers surmised that "...he had a diet relatively rich in meat or fish, which may suggest that he was in a trade or job which gave him more access to these foods than a poor person might have normally had. He had fallen on hard times, perhaps through illness, limiting his ability to continue working or through not having a family network to take care of him in his poverty."
The team also suggested that "his tooth enamel had stopped growing on two occasions during his youth, suggesting he had suffered bouts of sickness or famine early on."
The researchers intend to perform additional analyses on others skeletons found in the area in hopes of “humanising people in the past, getting beyond the scientific facts to see them as individuals with life stories and experiences.”
Much has been discovered about the lives of the Middle Ages elite, but woefully little is known about the day-to-day experiences and living conditions of the poor.
Researchers working with the University of Cambridge intend to change that.
A team in the U.K. recently studied and reconstructed the facial features of a 700-year-old skeleton found buried beneath the university's Old Divinity School of St John’s College and say the endeavor has provided great insights into what it was like to be destitute in Medieval times.
John Robb, one of the researchers involved, commented that the individual, currently named Context 958, “was probably an inmate of the Hospital of St John, a charitable institution which provided food and a place to live for a dozen or so indigent townspeople.”
Through the study of the man’s bones and teeth, the researchers surmised that "...he had a diet relatively rich in meat or fish, which may suggest that he was in a trade or job which gave him more access to these foods than a poor person might have normally had. He had fallen on hard times, perhaps through illness, limiting his ability to continue working or through not having a family network to take care of him in his poverty."
The team also suggested that "his tooth enamel had stopped growing on two occasions during his youth, suggesting he had suffered bouts of sickness or famine early on."
The researchers intend to perform additional analyses on others skeletons found in the area in hopes of “humanising people in the past, getting beyond the scientific facts to see them as individuals with life stories and experiences.”