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Difference in Death? A Lost Neolithic Inhumation Cemetery with Britain’s Earliest Case of Rickets, at Balevullin, Western Scotland
Armit, Ian Shapland, Fiona Montgomery, Janet Beaumont, Julia
Armit, Ian
Shapland, Fiona
Montgomery, Janet
Beaumont, Julia
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2015-06
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© 2015 CUP. Full-text reproduced in accordance with the publisher's copyright agreement with the authors.
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Abstract
Recent radiocarbon dating of a skeleton from Balevullin, Tiree, excavated in the early twentieth century,
demonstrates that it dates to the Neolithic period, rather than the Iron Age as originally expected. Osteological
examination suggests that the individual was a young adult woman, exhibiting osteological deformities
consistent with vitamin D deficiency, most likely deriving from childhood rickets; an exceptionally early
identification of the disease in the UK with potentially significant social implications. Isotopic analysis supports
the osteological evidence for physiological stress in childhood and further suggests that the woman was most
probably local to the islands. Analysis of the surviving written archive reveals that the surviving skeleton was
one of several originally recovered from the site, making Balevullin an exceptionally rare example of a British
Neolithic inhumation cemetery.
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Armit I, Shapland F, Montgomery J and Beaumont J (2015) Difference in Death? A Lost Neolithic Inhumation Cemetery with Britain’s Earliest Case of Rickets, at Balevullin, Western Scotland. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. 81: 199-214
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