{"id":7039375,"date":"2026-08-16T14:18:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T14:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/aerospace\/a-medieval-mans-injuries-reminded-one-archaeologist-of-modern-day-car-crash-victims-they-turned-out-to-be-the-work-of-an-english-trebuchet\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T14:18:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T14:18:21","slug":"a-medieval-mans-injuries-reminded-one-archaeologist-of-modern-day-car-crash-victims-they-turned-out-to-be-the-work-of-an-english-trebuchet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7039375","title":{"rendered":"A Medieval Man’s Injuries Reminded One Archaeologist of Modern-Day Car Crash Victims. They Turned Out to Be the Work of an English Trebuchet"},"content":{"rendered":"


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A skeleton unearthed in Scotland likely belongs to a soldier struck by a high-speed projectile during Edward I\u2019s 1304 siege of Stirling Castle. The man suffered more than 160 fractures<\/h2>\n
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\n \"Meilan\n <\/div>\n
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Meilan Solly<\/a><\/p>\n

| Senior Associate Digital Editor, History<\/span><\/p>\n

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A modern-day view of Stirling Castle, the Scottish stronghold where the skeleton was found in 1997
\n Atosan via Getty Images<\/span>
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In 1304, Edward I<\/a> of England unveiled a powerful new weapon in his fight<\/a> against Scotland. Known as the War Wolf<\/a>, the siege engine was the largest wooden trebuchet ever built<\/a>, capable of launching projectiles that weighed more than 300 pounds. According to a 19th-century history<\/a>, the weapon smashed through the walls of\u00a0Scotland\u2019s\u00a0Stirling Castle<\/a>\u00a0as easily \u201cas an arrow would fly through a piece of cloth.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 700 years after Edward cowed the Scots into submission (albeit temporarily<\/a>), archaeologists have uncovered a rare reminder of the damage inflicted by the king\u2019s siege engines.<\/p>\n

As Jo Buckberry<\/a>, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Bradford in England, announced<\/a> at a recent meeting of the Paleopathology Association, a skeleton excavated at the Scottish castle bears more than 160 fractures sustained at or around the time of death, with most of the injuries concentrated on the skull and the ribs. Buckberry argues that the man\u2019s remains represent the first known evidence of trebuchet trauma in the archaeological record.<\/p>\n

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Artist Bob Marshall’s digital reconstruction of War Wolf during the 1304 Siege of Stirling Castle<\/p>\n

Bob Marshall under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt looks like he was hit from behind by something traveling at a great velocity,\u201d Buckberry tells Science <\/em>magazine<\/a>\u2019s Andrew Curry<\/a>. \u201cThe most similar cases I was finding were car crashes and people hit by trains. But how do you get from there to a guy in medieval Scotland? What is large and moving very, very quickly in 1304?\u201d<\/p>\n

The answer, Buckberry concluded after comparing the man\u2019s injuries to other documented cases, was probably a large stone that struck his right shoulder and the back of his head with great force, pinning him to the ground. \u201cThe scale of the fractures of his body suggest his death was thankfully instantaneous,\u201d the researcher says to the Daily Mail<\/em><\/a>\u2019s William Hunter.<\/p>\n

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Need to know: What is a trebuchet?<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Radiocarbon dating of the skeleton\u2014one of nine<\/a> unearthed at Stirling Castle in 1997\u2014indicates that it dates to the Wars of Scottish Independence<\/a>, which spanned 1296 to 1357. Unlike most other medieval victims of wartime violence, the man\u2019s remains show no signs of injuries sustained in hand-to-hand combat.<\/p>\n

Instead, \u201cit\u2019s all these crushing injuries, sort of blunt force injuries,\u201d Buckberry told historian Matt Lewis<\/a> in a video shared by History Hit<\/a>. \u201cAnything with a large surface area \u2026 it\u2019s very difficult to say exactly what happened, but this is not a person who died in a battle on a battlefield, where we\u2019d expect to see sword injuries.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Medieval Autopsy Reveals HORRIFIC Injuries<\/p>\n

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