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Fractured hand
Site: Jarrow monastic site, Tyne and Wear.
Period: Late Saxon to post-medieval.
Excavator: Prof. R.J. Cramp, Durham University.
Published: forthcoming.
Skeleton: female in old age.
Catalogue entry: A woman (70/151) had two broken metacarpals (third and fourth) and one phalanx of her left hand. Her bones healed in a bad position, with transverse union between the two metacarpals. This injury may have been caused by direct violence to the back of the hand, perhaps from a weapon or tool blow. The fusion would have been cuased by bleeding into the internal wound, forming a clot which later became organised into bone.