Osteology

A number of burials can be assigned to the 9th to 11th centuries stratigraphically. Some were furnished with metalwork, mostly belt fittings (Paterson and Tweddle 2013), and 8th to 11th century radiocarbon dates have been obtained from teeth dentine and ribs (Batt 2014). The excavated population was quite small, and spans approximately 1400 years, so making meaningful inferences about the population is difficult.

It consisted of children, infants, and male and female adults (Lerwick and Buckberry 2013). Females outnumbered males in the sample analysed, but the sample excavated and analysed may not have been representative of the buried population. The pre-Norman sample of burials includes male and female adults, many aged at least 45 years. No examples of trauma or other significant pathologies were present, but rather the population suffered more common conditions including dental caries, calculus, joint disease, and maxillary sinusitis.

Cranial form is influenced by both genetics and environment (Mays 2000). The cranial indices for Carlisle vary considerably, suggesting the inhabitants were biologically diverse. Notably, the average values at Carlisle, indicating mesocrany (medium-headed), differ from those recorded for the Anglo-Scandinavian populations at Riccall Landing and Masham, north Yorkshire that contained largely doli-chocranic (long) skulls (Lerwick and Buckberry 2013; 2014).

However, cranial form is known to vary over time. Dolichocranic skulls are common in early medieval and post-medieval populations and brachycranic (round) and mesocranic skulls are the norms for medieval populations. Thus the variation in cranial indices seen at Carlisle may be explained by the wide variation in dates for the few skeletons with intact crania excavated and analysed at the site. It is too early to assess the significance of these observations because the number of individuals is too small and not all have been dated securely.