Victims of a 17th century massacre in Central Europe: Perimortem trauma of castle defenders

Abstract

Interments of massacre victims typically differ from normal funerary practices. Bodies are commonly not orderly buried but are thrown into a single grave‐pit and exhibit multiple perimortem traumatic injuries. Although perimortem skeletal trauma constitutes the most direct and unambiguous evidence for violence and warfare in the past, analysis should take contextual information into account. The aim of our research is to examine the skeletal evidence of interpersonal violence in the remains of defenders of a castle in Gołańcz, Poland, who were killed in ad 1656 during the Polish‐Swedish War. This event is well documented in the historical sources, thereby providing the detailed socio‐cultural context. Standard anthropological methods were used to estimate age‐at‐death and biological sex. Macroscopic morphological features developed by forensic anthropologists were applied to distinguish between ante mortem, perimortem, and post mortem traumas. Descriptive and metric attributes were analysed for each injury. Of the 25 skeletons recovered from a mass grave, 22 displayed evidence of perimortem trauma. In total, 90 injuries were found, mainly consisting of sharp‐force trauma. These included 79 injuries to the skull, two injuries to the teeth, and nine injuries to the postcranial skeleton. Multiple traumatic lesions were found in 15 individuals (68.1%). The most prevalent were sharp‐force trauma (21 individuals, 95.5%), followed by blunt‐force trauma (two individuals, 9.1%.), with high‐velocity projectile wounds being least common (one individual, 4.5%). Two individuals had their teeth broken off in the perimortem period. Our study revealed that the inhabitants of Gołańcz were subjected to an extreme level of interpersonal violence, as evidenced by the location, pattern, and distribution of the observed traumatic injuries. From archaeological and historical data, it is known that the event took place during the Swedish invasion into Poland. Our data demonstrate that violence was inflicted not only upon men but also upon women and children. These findings are in contrast to written accounts, which maintain that the Swedish army spared women and children during the attack, and as such show bias inherent to culture‐related sources of information.

Weapon injuries in the crusader mass graves from a 13th century attack on the port city of Sidon (Lebanon)

“…The distribution of lesions in Fig 4 shows many more blows to the head, neck and shoulders than to the lower limbs. This is compatible with both an assault by mounted assailants against footmen [ 56 ] and the fighting technique of contemporary near eastern cavalry training [ 57 ]. The higher number of wounds to the back of the body, compared with the front, is most likely to indicate that they were wounded while running away from their assailants [ 58 , 59 ].…”

“…A high prevalence of perimortem trauma, incorporating sharp force, penetrating force and blunt force, demonstrates the conflict in which these individuals died was extremely violent and destructive. The concentration of wounds to the head and shoulders of some individuals would be compatible with their being on foot when attacked by mounted assailants [ 56 , 57 ]. As more wounds were present on the back than on the front of these individuals, this would suggest that some were attacked from behind as they tried to flee.…”

Troubles in Tuva: Patterns of perimortem trauma in a nomadic community from Southern Siberia (second to fourth c.CE)

“…In almost all affected individuals multiple lesions are documented on various bones, with blows originating from different positions. In the literature multiple perimortem lesions are frequently observed on victims of hand‐to‐hand combats in preindustrial contexts (Ingelmark, 1939; Jiménez‐Brobeil et al, 2014; Kjellström, 2005; Łukasik, Krenz‐Niedbała, Zdanowicz, Różański, & Olszacki, 2019; Murphy, 2003a; Novak, 2000; Pankowská, Galeta, Uhlík Spěváčková, & Nováček, 2019; Tumler, Paladin, & Zink, 2019; Tur et al, 2018). They may result from the attempt to incapacitate an opponent hitting them repeatedly, and/or by the attack by multiple aggressors in crowded battlefields (see Knüsel & Boylston, 2000; Novak, 2000).…”

Residual energy dispersal fracturing: A newly proposed term for fractures propagating from sharp‐force trauma

“…Peri-mortem trauma is considered to have taken place around the time of death, whilst the bone maintains its living properties (wet, green, or biomechanically fresh bone) but not long enough before death for any healing to have occurred. Post-mortem damage, often being measured in centuries or even millennia in osteoarchaeology, occurs after death and becomes discernible anthropologically after the loss of the organic components of the bone, which causes bone to fracture in rough, irregular patterns since the bone is more brittle and less elastic (dry bone) (Cohen et al, 2012;Cunha & Pinheiro, 2016;Fleischmann, 2019;Galloway et al, 1999;L'Abbé et al, 2015L'Abbé et al, , 2022Lovell, 1997;Łukasik et al, 2019;Nawrocki, 2016;Sauer, 1998;Wheatley, 2008). This category can be further sub- Montaperto, 2013;Galloway et al, 2014;L'Abbé et al, 2019L'Abbé et al, , 2022 divided into mineralized breaks (minimal or no collagen remaining) and dry fractures (occurring after death but before the complete loss of collagen) (Crozier, 2018;Knüsel & Outram, 2012).…”

“… Note : Adapted from Łukasik et al, 2019 Table 2, p. 285. Ubelaker & Montaperto, 2013; Galloway et al, 2014; L'Abbé et al, 2019, 2022. …”