trauma

In the still soil under a church in Lund, southern Sweden, archaeologists have discovered the skeletal remains of a man whose fractured bones tell us a lot about medieval life, suffering, and human kindness. Referred to solely as Individual 2399, the male was hit by a catastrophic knee injury in his early twenties—an injury so extensive that it continued to reshape his mobility and life quality for the rest of his life. And yet, despite all odds, he not only lived for years after but ended up being buried in a high-end burial site, near the foundations of a church tower. This find, recently published in Open Archaeology, highlights the ways in which individuals with disability were handled and viewed