Skeletons discovered in Washington Square

  • Published
  • By Karen Abeyasekere
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  The remains of four bodies have recently been uncovered in Washington Square here, as the area is prepared for construction and landscaping.

But far from being the gruesome discovery of a horrific murder or other grisly circumstances, these skeletal remains have been there for some time.

In fact, three of the four are thought to be from the late Iron Age, and the fourth could be Roman, according to Rob Brooks, Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service excavation supervisor.

"We think this area was probably a farmstead - possibly with an extended family living here," he said.

Over the years, many archaeological artifacts have been discovered both here and at RAF Lakenheath, and the Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service has been working with both bases for a very long time. Because of this, the 100th Civil Engineer Squadron's Defence Estates Office always calls them to come and dig when construction work is being done, Mr. Brooks said.

Archaeologists are uncertain about how British society was organized in this area under the Romans, but there is good evidence that there were huge farming estates where cattle and sheep were raised alongside the growing of cereals, according to Andrew Tester, Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service senior project officer, in an e-mail.

Mr. Tester added that the land was probably owned by a small minority of wealthy individuals. The people on these estates were probably the direct descendants of many of the people living in Mildenhall and Lakenheath today.

Mr. Brooks said the skeletons found in the Washington Square area were all in fairly good condition considering their age, and although the soil here is fairly acidic, there is also lots of chalk.

"The bones look fairly solid, but when you lift them out of the ground they start to fall apart."

The team of archaeologists painstakingly spends hours using trowels, small brushes and hand shovels to uncover the skeletons and other artifacts.

"It's definitely a case of slowly and carefully," Mr. Brooks said.

He explained there's no way to know exactly where the skeletons are buried.

"There are no formalized graveyards, and when the ditches around here got backfilled, it was with different soil. When holes were dug for the burials, people tended to refill it with the same soil, which is an orangey color, and then in later years, other soil got put on top," he said.

At least two of the skeletons found had a crouch burial, meaning they were found in the crouch position.

The position of one indicated the person had been lying on his or her side, and another seems to show it was sitting up in a crouch position with its legs hunched up and arms crossed over the body. But over time, and possibly because of the ground being disturbed when the roads there were originally dug out, it had fallen on its side.

That particular skeleton was also missing its skull and some of its bones ...

However, Mr. Brooks insists that there's no gruesome reason for the missing body parts.

"If it still has the top vertebrae, it's very unlikely the person was beheaded," he said. "This skeleton has obviously collapsed at some point, which is why the bones are so close together.

"The skull is missing because it was either subsequently dug or ploughed away in the last couple of hundred years. We are pretty sure these people were probably farmers, rather than warriors."

Also found on site were Iron Age coins, which are quite rare, Roman broaches and a small amount of Roman roof tile, which Mr. Brooks said is quite unusual, as not much has previously been found on base.

Now, all the skeletons have been removed, and transferred to the Archaeological Service in Bury St. Edmunds, where they are washed before being sent to a bone specialist in Scotland.

There they will be laid out in the shape of a skeletal form as much as possible, and the experts will then take samples of the bone to see if they can be radio carbon dated. In addition to working out the age and sex of the individuals, they will look for signs of pathology such as arthritis, tooth decay and cause of death.

Once the bone specialists have finished their studies and observations, the bones and other items are returned to Bury St. Edmunds.

Some are then sent to museums, but as there wouldn't be room for all the finds, others are either carefully stored or reburied.

"The real importance of archaeology is, and has been, the understanding of origins," said Mark Howell, 100th Air Refueling Wing historian. "In order to understand any people, or even ourselves, we must understand the past.

"We have a rich tradition that comes from the United Kingdom and it's incredibly important that we understand those origins in order to understand who we are as a people," he said.

"Many of the artifacts recovered and remains that were unearthed in Washington Square shed light on the Roman period, the British prehistoric period, and the cultures that were predominate during those eras. Though they seem far removed now, they were in many ways, our forbearers," the historian said.