3 research outputs found
Pitkin poikin Aurajokea - Arkeologisia tutkimuksia
In 2011–14, the Museum Centre of Turku
conducted archaeological excavations at
the site of a 19th-century burial ground.
The excavations were connected with
building work done at the site. During the
excavations, 45 graves were detected of
which 37 were thoroughly documented.
Eight of the observed graves did not coincide with the construction site and these
where left untouched. The graves were
preserved to different degrees: some were
almost completely decomposed while others were quite well preserved. The bodies had been placed in simple wooden coffins. Some of the coffins were placed in
the same pit side by side and on top of
each other in two layers. Some of them
included plant remains such as straw or
twigs that had been placed under the
body, especially under the head.
Three of the burials contained a small
metal Orthodox cross pendant and two
of the graves showed signs of amputated
legs. One of these was a young man whose
left lower leg (tibia) had been amputated.
He had died before the amputation had
begun to heal. Still, the off-cut part of the
leg had not been included in the burial.
The other case was an amputated femur
that was found in a grave where the buried
individual had two whole legs. It seems
that the off-cut part was buried in another
person’s coffin. However, it is possible that
the femur belonged in the coffin on top
of the one it was found in, since this quite
decomposed coffin had partly collapsed
into the nether one.
This burial ground has not been
marked on maps. Human bones and burials were first found there in the early 21th
century, when the area was constructed
into a residential zone. In the 1970s, when
bones were again found, the museum was
informed that this was a Cholera burial
ground. Indeed, historical sources confirm that a Cholera burial ground had
been founded somewhere in the area in
1831, during the first epidemic. However,
two major questions remain. First, why
was the burial ground forgotten so soon
after its use period? In 1905 when the residential area was being built, newspapers
reported the finds of mysterious human
bones as if there was no recollection of a
burial ground founded there only around
70 years earlier. Moreover, only ten
years earlier, in 1895, a local newspaper
reported that funds were appropriated for
building a fence around the Cholera burial ground, since relatives of the deceased
were distressed about the neglected state
of the graves. The second question might provide a clue for the first one. All 14 of the
deceased whose sex was possible to estimate were male. All were adults, except
one was juvenile. Moreover, the Orthodox cross pendants and amputated legs
(together with earlier observations of soldier clothing) seem to point towards Russian soldiers. The Cholera burial ground
of the Russian military hospital did indeed
situate close to the area. However, if the
area excavated was mainly in use by the
Russian troops, it would mean that the
burial ground of ordinary townspeople is
still to be located. Continued excavations
in the area may shed more light to this
question.</p
Cases of trisomy 21 and trisomy 18 among historic and prehistoric individuals discovered from ancient DNA
Aneuploidies, and in particular, trisomies represent the most common genetic aberrations observed in human genetics today. To explore the presence of trisomies in historic and prehistoric populations we screen nearly 10,000 ancient human individuals for the presence of three copies of any of the target autosomes. We find clear genetic evidence for six cases of trisomy 21 (Down syndrome) and one case of trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome), and all cases are present in infant or perinatal burials. We perform comparative osteological examinations of the skeletal remains and find overlapping skeletal markers, many of which are consistent with these syndromes. Interestingly, three cases of trisomy 21, and the case of trisomy 18 were detected in two contemporaneous sites in early Iron Age Spain (800-400 BCE), potentially suggesting a higher frequency of burials of trisomy carriers in those societies. Notably, the care with which the burials were conducted, and the items found with these individuals indicate that ancient societies likely acknowledged these individuals with trisomy 18 and 21 as members of their communities, from the perspective of burial practice
Cemetery Considerations: The Case of Nokia Viik, Finland
Finnish cairn sites are typically defined through the concepts of ‘grave’ or ‘cemetery’, their main purpose being associated with burials. However, when one examines cemetery-related contexts in Iron Age Finland, they exhibit a great deal of variation with regard to the existence of interments, how they can be identified, and how they correlate with other finds. The case study, a re-examination of Cairn 4 at Nokia Viik, excavated in 1986–1987, illustrates some of these issues. With a focus on understanding the chronology, osteology, formation, and more detailed spatial character of the cairn, it is revealed that the monument has been accumulated over several centuries and includes elements that cannot easily be explained as individual burials or even cremation remains in a collective grave context. The site’s timespan extends from the Late Roman Iron Age and the Migration Period to the Merovingian Period and the Viking Age, where especially the latter periods seem to include deposited materials not related to any actual or distinguishable funerals. One major issue addressed is how to interpret complex structures, where distinct burials are difficult to define, and human remains only occur as one component