Battle of Aljubarrota

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In 1385 the Medieval Battle of Aljubarrota took place in central Portugal between the Portuguese and the Castilians. This was a significant battle for Portugal’s independence. According to record, 6,500 Portuguese knights, squires and footmen battled a troop of Castilians twice their size. Almost 6,000 men died, many to be left on the battle field. It wouldn’t be for another 7 years, when a chapel was being built over the battle field that the dead bodies would find a burial ground. In 1958 of archaeologists and anthropologists from Coimbra Univeristy, Portugal excavated the site. Since it took several years for the soldiers to receive proper burial, many non-articulated bones such as hand and foot bones, vertebrae, and ribs were missing. There was also very few skulls to be examined. The majority of the ossuary consisted of long bone fragments. Even some horse bones were found, indicating some of the soldiers were mounted. It wouldn’t be for another 35 years that re-analysis of the bones would take place. The sample, kept in wooden boxes for all those years, consisted of 400 individuals. As for trauma lesions, the bones in the series exhibit cuts, periosteal reaction and dislocations. However, when bones were submitted for X-ray analysis, there was no evidence of fracture lines. Lesions from sharp force weapons such as swords and axes are found. Other trauma associated with arrows and lances are also exhibited with frequency. Many bones display a good deal of bone remodeling, indicating that the injury was received antemortem and some healing took place. One femoral diaphysis in particular has extensive lesions with a significant amount of periosteal reaction, indicating that infection took hold. One 15cm right humeral diaphysis shows a Parry Fracture . In fact, it looks as though the humerus was completely amputated as the man defensively put his forearm in front of this face. Interestingly, the amputated bone shows signs of healing which means that the soldier didn’t receive the injury at this particular battle, and that we was fighting with one arm! In addition, the skulls that were found showed remarkable trauma, probably meaning that the soldiers didn’t have sufficient head protection. In one case, the left posterior side of the cranium shows signs of trauma consistent with that of being hit with an arrow. However, there are some indications that this soldier lived for a least a little while after the injury. Finally, the excavators concluded that, by all indications from the examined bones, most of the injuries were not received at this battle. This means that most of the soldiers, no matter how bad their physical disabilities (i.e. the soldier with one arm), went to war for their country.