The Bioarchaeology of Impairment and Disability in Medieval Helsingborg - A Population Analysis of the Skeletal Material from the Convent of S:t Nicolai

Sammanfattning: Disability is an aspect that forms a significant part of the human condition. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) an estimated 1 billion people worldwide live with a disability. That accounts for roughly 15 % of the entire human population, and therefore it has been sometimes referred to as the world's largest minority. The presence of people with disability is a phenomenon that is not widely discussed in the historical record and therefore the prevalence and attitudes towards disability is not well understood. Bioarchaeology offers an unique opportunity to answer some of the questions regarding disability in the past. Utilizing a newly developed methodology, called Bioarchaeology of Disability (BoD), this study aims to inquire about the status of disability in the medieval cemetery of S:t Nicolai, in Helsingborg, Sweden. The focus in this study lies upon individuals with traumatically acquired impairments. The results show that there was a clear effort to bury people with severe impairments in marginal areas of the cemetery. All the severely impaired individuals were buried far away from the church, and/or located isolated from the other individuals. The individuals with less severe impairments were, on the other hand, granted normative burials, and were buried close to the church and in close association with the remaining non-impaired population. The results follow what contemporary religious and legal sources state regarding impairment and disability.