Blue Bridge Lane
&
Fishergate House
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The analysis of 244 medieval skeletons and seven cremated individuals dating to the Roman period from Fishergate House and Blue Bridge Lane in York has provided an opportunity to increase current understanding of health, disease, gender roles, work, effects of environment and pollution and socio-economic effects in individuals from the past. The results of the osteological analysis demonstrated that, although no documentary evidence for the burial ground survives, much information regarding the character of the assemblage could be gained through skeletal analysis. It suggests that during the Roman period, part of the cemetery along Fishergate was reserved for the burial of children; the grave goods interred with these juveniles suggest that they were valued members of Roman society.
During the medieval period, part of this area was used as a cemetery for a group of individuals of low socio-economic status. The population included a large number of children, many of whom had died as a result of infections and hardship between the ages of one and six years. A large proportion of the population had suffered from the effects of hard labour, exposure to a high pathogen load, poor hygiene, crowded living conditions and pollution. This stands in contrast to the much healthier population interred at the adjacent site of the Gilbertine priory of St Andrew's. However, many of those individuals who survived the deprivations of childhood also endured disease and hardship during adulthood and therefore lived to an old age.
apc > monographs > blue bridge lane & fishergate house > artefacts & environmental > human bone:
