A roughly 2,000-year-old woman with a potentially violent streak has emerged from skeletal rubble found on an island off southwestern England’s coast.
The island grave dates to roughly 100 B.C. to 50 B.C., based on radiocarbon dating of a partial bone and the types of metal objects found in the burial. Given tooth wear, the woman died between the ages of 20 and 25.
Since the burial’s accidental discovery in 1999 by a farmer plowing a field on England’s Bryher Island, researchers have wondered whether the stone-lined grave contained a man or woman. No other Western European Iron Age grave includes a sword, typically found in male burials from that region, and a mirror, often associated with female burials.
Human skeletal biologist Simon Mays of Historic England, a public organization that protects and studies historical places, in Portsmouth and colleagues speculate that the woman may have fought in raids and helped to fend off enemy attacks. Violence between communities may often have occurred in Iron Age Europe (SN: 10/6/20). And growing evidence suggests that ancient women, not just men, could be warriors too (SN: 9/13/17).
2023-12-01 12:00:00
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