Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2005, Page 96

Garðar Guðmundsson, Gavin Lucas, Hildur Gestsdóttir and Sigríður Þorgeirsdóttir
unusually high percentage of juveniles in
the collection (23%), which might indi-
cate that the excavation was in a part of
the cemetery where the children were
commonly buried. Burying children up
against the church is a known practice in
Iceland, although more commonly seen
in earlier medieval cemeteries. It is
worth noting that two of the youngest
individuals may be associated with
adults, though both came from fairly dis-
turbed graves. Perinatal skeleton 8.3b,
was associated with 8.3a, a 25-35 male
and the foetal skeleton 8.2c occurred
alongside two other adults, both of unde-
termined sex, one aged 25-35. It is a
known practice, in particular in post-
medieval cemeteries in Iceland, to bury
infants with adults, and then not neces-
sarily a relative. It is also possible that
one of the adults buried with the foetal
skeleton was a pregnant female.
However the proximity of these individ-
uals to each other could be the result of
post-burial disturbance, so these observa-
tions are purely speculative. Although the
percentage of juvenile skeletons in the
collection is higher than normal, the dis-
tribution of age is what is to be expected,
with most of them fitting into the perina-
tal or weaning ages. The distribution of
age of the adults which could be aged is
not typical, with a high percentage of
them falling into the 25-35 period. More
typically one would expect to fmd more
in the 35-45 age category for cemeteries
from this period. However, it is ques-
tionable how statistically viable any such
analysis is with such a small sample.
Although stature measurements
could be taken from four skeletons (7.2,
8.2a, 8.4 and 12.1) and two long bones
from disarticulated collections (TP3 and
TP7), only one of these (8.4, a female)
could be sexed with any confídence, and
as all the standards are based on sex, it is
diffícult to determine what the living
stature would have been.
Five individuals showed patho-
logical changes, in particular three indi-
viduals had pathological changes sug-
gesting possible nutritional disorder.
Skeleton 11.2 (8-13 years) had active
new bone formation on the humerus and
os coxa. This could indicate sub-
periosteal haemorrhaging associated with
vitamin C-defíciency (scurvy). A possi-
ble differential diagnosis would be a non-
specifíc infection. Whatever the cause of
the new bone formation, it was active at
the time of death. Two individuals, 8.2a
(35-45 years, unknown sex) and 8.4
(female, 35-45) had multiple enamel
hypoplasia, linear in the case of 8.2a and
both linear and pitted in the case of 8.4.
These are indicators of periods of stress
during childhood, quite commonly asso-
ciated with nutritional deficiency.
There is one case of trauma in
the collection. Skeleton 8.2a has os acro-
miale of the left scapula, which is char-
acterised by the failure of the acromion to
fuse to the rest of the scapula. This tends
to be associated with trauma to the rota-
tor cuff muscles which support the shoul-
der. There are two cases of spinal joint
disease; 8.2a has a slight increase in
porosity of the processes of three tho-
racic vertebrae, probably just associated
with degenerative changes to the spine.
There is also a C1 vertebra in the collec-
tion of disarticulated human bone from
test pit 8 with ebumation, indicating
osteoarthritis of the neck. Three skele-
tons in the collection have teeth present
(7.2 a probable male, 8.2a and 8.4), and
all have some pathological changes. All
three have calculus fonnation to a vary-
94