The finds : (iii) skeletal remains

Abstract

Only one minor study of medieval or sixteenth-century bones in Malta has so far been published. The bones studied by Dudley Buxton, though described as "late medieval", were in fact much more modem. It was stated in 1975 that it has "been argued that there is a 'Maltese race' which survived above all in the backward and isolated agricultural areas, but it seems hard to reconcile such theories with the known facts of medieval Malta. The only serious ethnological investigation so far attempted involved the measurement of bones and bodies classed as: Bronze Age; RomanoMaltese; 'Late Medieval'; and modem, the modem measurements being taken in Valletta, in the Maltese countryside, and in Gozo. Unfortunately, the 'Late Medieval' bones were actually seventeenth- and eighteenth-century ones. It should yet be possible to obtain enough truly medieval bones to fit into the picture". The present report is the first publication of a study involving undisputedly medieval bones in Malta, though it should be noted that some of the bones here discussed may well be post-medieval in date. All of them, however, probably date before 1636. Both the woman CP (from grave F10), whose skeleton is complete, and the child CT definitely died some time before about 1480.