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Skeleton in the front yard of the elite Cambridge University
Photo: Albion Archeology
An Anglo-Saxon cemetery with 60 graves was discovered during the demolition of a former student residence on the grounds of Cambridge University in the UK.
A modern building was supposed to be built on the site.
But a group of archaeologists came across a cemetery from the early Middle Ages.
Human remains and around 700 items were uncovered in the graves, including bronze brooches, pearl necklaces, swords, blades, ceramics and glass bottles.
The discovery of the graves was "very unusual and really interesting," said the medieval expert Sam Lucy from Cambridge University to the BBC.
Archaeologists have suspected that there was an early medieval cemetery in West Cambridge since the 19th century.
According to the archaeologist Lucy, most of the skeletons were dated between the fourth and seventh centuries AD.
At that time, the first Anglo-Saxons lived in the east of England.
For the archaeologists, the graves are a great treasure, because people are buried fully clothed in many graves.
So you also have brooches and pearls with you, says Sam Lucy.
Some even found spearheads and the remains of shields.
Medieval researchers want to use the remains to learn more about how and what people ate in the early Middle Ages, what diseases they had and what injuries they suffered from.
The harshness of medieval life
A team of archaeologists from the university had already examined the remains of 314 people from the tenth to the 14th centuries that were found in the city of Cambridge.
They also collect evidence of people's living conditions.
The skeletons of this study came from people of various social classes, including ordinary workers, the sick and needy, as well as the wealthy and clergy of an Augustinian monastery.
"Life was hardest among the lower social classes - but actually it was hard everywhere," said Jenna Dittmar, head of the study.
The research team published the results at the end of January in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
With the help of X-ray analyzes, for example, the researchers were able to show that 44 percent of working people had broken bones, 32 percent of the clergy and only 27 percent of the skeletons from the hospital cemetery.
In all of the burials, fractures were more common in male remains than in female.
Many broken bones can be compared with those of serious car accidents - at that time probably caused by accidents with horse and cart.
In one monk, both thighs were completely erupted.
"A traumatic experience and probably the cause of death," commented the archaeologist Dittmar.
Cambridge is an Eldorado for researchers from the Middle Ages: as early as 2015, archaeological research showed that the Old Divinity School at St. John's College in Cambridge is one of the largest medieval hospital cemeteries in Great Britain with over 1000 human remains.
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