Bioarchaeology of Injuries and Violence in Early Medieval Europe

Bioarchaeology of Injuries and Violence in Early Medieval Europe presents evidence and documents forms of violence and injuries in skeletal remains. Its contributions address this topic for the first time in a chronologically specific arc (Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages) and a wide geographical area (Greece, England, Germany, France, Italy and Spain). The diversity of examples of interpersonal violence, collective violence (mass graves), punishments, and ante-mortem and post-mortem injuries provides an important data set concerning the degree and dimension of violence and injuries in post-Roman Europe. Osteoarchaeological and bioarchaeological analysis of human remains, together with exhaustive studies of corpses, from the time of burial to exhumation, makes it possible to identify burials as 'non-normative', 'anomalous' or 'deviant' burials that may be the result of violence, including evidence of punishments and executions.