Ancient burial sites show just how badly our ancestors treated older women

When archaeologists Christine Cave and Marc Oxenham analysed three Anglo-Saxon burial sites, they found that women were often less respected than men in death.

Cave and Oxenham looked into the burials of 200 people dating back to the 6th century AD. They focused their attention on three cemeteries: Greater Chesterford in Essex, Mill Hill in Kent, and Worthy Park in Hampshire.

Their findings, titled Sex and the Elderly were published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.

The archaeologists found that, while men did receive non-normative burials, more women received them than men in every age category. "Only women were buried face down, or prone," they note, "a form of non-normative burial treatment often seen as having negative connotations." In fact, two of those prone women appear to have been bound or restrained.

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