Medieval girl buried face down with bound ankles, likely so she couldn’t ‘return’ from the grave

Earlier than abandoning their settlement, a medieval neighborhood in England tore down an elaborate entrance gate and buried a 15-year-old lady as a substitute. And in a closing act marking her as totally different, they seemingly sure her ankles and interred her face down, a brand new evaluation reveals.

The lady’s uncommon burial on the boundary of the settlement is an expression of “otherness,” archaeologists famous. 

“We are going to in all probability by no means know precisely how this younger lady was considered by the neighborhood she grew up in, however the way in which she was buried tells us she was virtually definitely seen as totally different,” Don Walker, a senior human osteologist (bone specialist) on the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA), mentioned in a press release launched Monday (Aug. 14). “Her burial rites might have mirrored the character of her loss of life, or her social identification or that of her household.”

It is even doable that the neighborhood sure the lady’s ankles as a consequence of a perception that her corpse may rise from the grave and hurt the dwelling.