Ancient Scottish Skeletons Show That Women Did the Heavy Work

Ancient skeletons found on a remote island off Scotland showed women did more heavy manual labor than men 400 years ago, a scientist says.

By examining the spines of people who lived and died on the island of Ensay between the 16th and 19th centuries, Joanna Sofaer Deverenski of Cambridge University determined that women suffered physically from strenuous labor.

“We know that women did most of the heavy lifting work,” she told a press conference at Britain’s annual science conference. “They were getting osteoarthritis at an early age. It suggests they were very stressed because of what they were doing.”

While the men fished or hunted, the women of the island of Ensay carried heavy loads of peat and other materials in creels, a sort of basket, on their backs.

The weight put increased stress on their spines, which caused pitting in the bones and osteophytes, or bony spurs.

In contrast, bones from a medieval site in Yorkshire, northern England, showed that men in the village of Wharram Percy worked much harder than the women.