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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Science
Esther Addley

Archaeologists reveal life stories of hundreds of people from medieval Cambridge

A Cambridge University illustration of an old man in medieval times sitting with a church in the background
A Cambridge University illustration of a man given the name 'Wat', who researchers think fell on hard times and died with cancer around the age of 60. Illustration: Mark Gridley/After the Plague/PA

Archaeologists at Cambridge University have reconstructed the “biographies” of hundreds of the city’s ordinary medieval residents by examining their skeletons in detail, using a wealth of scientific data to fill out the life stories of poor or disadvantaged people whose names were never recorded.

By examining the bones of more than 400 adults and children who were buried in the grounds of a medieval hospital between AD1200 and 1500, the researchers have built up a detailed picture of the lives, health and even appearance of those who lived and died in Cambridge in the period.

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