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admin sinfulldude
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Tadcaster , towton battlefieldThe cries of men in battle are meant to be heard at the battlefield of Towton around the date of 29th march.
Workmen disturbed a portion of a mass-burial pit during building work at the location of the Towton battlefield (near Tadcaster, North Yorkshire) some time in Augugust 1996. At the request of North Yorkshire County Council Heritage Unit, a team of osteoarchaeologists and archaeologists from the Department of Archaeological Sciences and members of the West Yorkshire Archaeology Service recovered remains of 43 individuals from the interment which measured 6m x 2m and was only 50 cm in depth. These tightly-packed individuals were recovered through the application of three-dimensional recording of the deposit and its contents, scaled photographs, and in situ sketch drawings. The original appearance of the deposit and associated entangled arms and legs with discrete individuals has been recreated using computer-assisted design software.
What transpired at Towton on a snowy Palm Sunday, March 29th, 1461, has ever since been something of a mystery, despite the battle being one of the largest and bloodiest ever fought on English soil. Historically, the battle marked a turning point in the Wars of the Roses that confirmed the Yorkist Edward IV's accession to the throne of England. During the battle and ensuing rout of the Lancastrians, an estimated 28,000 men lost their lives. The application of forensic anthropological techniques for identifying and recording injuries has allowed us to confirm that the individuals from the pit were casualties of an extremely violent encounter. Moreover, they provide a unique glimpse of the personal consequences of battle for some who took part.
Most of these individuals had sustained multiple perimortem (around the time of death) injuries from a variety of projectiles and hand-held weapons, many of which bear resemblance to those curated by the National Armouries Museum, Leeds and dating to the late Medieval period. In order to document these injuries complete reconstruction of crania was necessary such that the wounds could be sequenced (the process of identifying the order in which blows were delivered and their physical ramifications). Many of the individuals suffered multiple injuries that are far in excess of those necessary to cause disability and death. From the distribution of cuts, chops, incisions, and punctures, it appears that blows cluster in the craniofacial area, in some cases bisecting the face and cranial vault of some individuals and detaching bone in others. Series of cuts and incisions found in the vicinity of the nasal and aural areas appear to have been directed toward removal of the nose and ears. There are few infra-cranial (torso and limb) injuries, which may suggest that these areas were not targeted, that these individuals were wearing armour, or that they sustained their injuries while in a position that did not allow them to defend themselves. The pattern, distribution, and number of these insults argues for perimortem mutilation. Many were left in a state that would have made identification difficult, even more so as they had been stripped of identifiable weapons and clothing prior to interment (a normal practice in the Medieval period).
The general size and robusticity of the individuals from Towton is unusual when compared with other medieval populations. Many of these individuals are more robust (stockier) than the medieval norm, appearing similar to modern professional athletes. The physical appearance of these individuals, then, may be related to extended periods of strenuous exertion prior to physiological maturity (i.e. in youth). Among these are numerous Schmorl's nodes in the vertebral column (from pressure exerted on the intervertebral discs in heavy lifting), os acromiale of the scapular spine, a condition that is often accompanied by rotator cuff (muscles that stabilise the shoulder) tears, and an avulsion fracture of the humeral medial epicondyle, a condition that develops from throwing (e.g. in projectile use) in more recent juvenile individuals. One hypothesis to explain this pattern is that these individuals were selected as participants in the battle because of previous experience and training in armed combat from a young age. Some support for this relationship comes from a number of healed injuries, testimony to prior involvement in armed conflict.
Analysis of the Towton assemblage offers a complementary view of medieval warfare to that offered by the chronicles of the Medieval period. Through it, we will attempt to place the Towton individuals within the context of late medieval society and address the effect of late medieval social change on warfare. Far from the chivalrous conflict so often associated with the Middle Ages, we may be seeing early evidence of the brutality more often encountered in the civil wars of the modern era.
Preliminary results of some of this multi-disciplinary work, co-ordinated by Anthea Boylston, made for a very successful and informative day-long seminar at the Royal Armouries, Leeds, that featured presentations by all the contributors in Bradford along with members of the Armouries staff. Anthea Boylston, Shannon Novak and Chris Knusel made a similar presentation to English Heritage in July that produced enthusiastic interest and discussion. A monograph on the Towton Project will be published by the Council for British Archaeology.
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weirdspirit
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Wow keep the story coming in cos they are really interesting and also its nice to know that Yorkshire has alot to offer besides shops and countrysides.
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