DET BLANDADE FOLKET : En osteodemografisk studie av Svartbrödraskapets gravgård i medeltidens Gamla stan, Stockholm

This paper deals with the comingled osteoarchaeological material from the medieval monastery affiliated with an order of monks called “Svartbrödraskapet” in Old town, Stockholm, Sweden that was active from ca A.D. 1350 to ca 1528. The aim of this paper is to provide new information about the monastery and its local community. A local demographic study is carried out to examine the gender and age distribution in the material as it can provide information on whether the cemetery was used generally or mainly by the monks of the monastery. Pathologies are analysed to obtain a health profile as well as a spatial analysis that examines similarities and differences between the specific areas in the Old town called Juno, “Tyska stallplan” and Venus. Standard osteological methods are used to analyse age, biological sex, body height and osteometrics. The results show a minimum number of 28 subadults and 56 adults which adds up to a minimum of 84 individuals in the cemetery with the most frequent age categories of infans I, infans II, juvenilis and adultus. The gender distribution shows that men are more prevalent in the assessed material. A wide range of pathological changes were noted and here attention was focused on cribra orbitale, enamel hypoplasia, enthesopathies and trauma/fracture. Although it is difficult to comment on individuals in a commingled skeletal material, the pathologies indicate that many individuals experienced longer periods of stress such as prolonged illness or starvation and hard manual labour at a young age, which are seen as alterations on the bones. They have also been exposed to various types of violence that have resulted in fractures and trauma that have either healed completely or altogether lack evidence of an active healing process