University of St Andrews Principal Sally Mapstone visits St Andrews History & Archaeology Lab

University Principal Sally Mapstone visted the St Andrews History & Archaeology lab on Monday, 5 November to hear about ongoing AHRC-funded research on medieval religious women and their work.

St Andrews students Amalie Logue and Kennedy Kersten and Lab Manager and PhD student Sally Mubarak demonstrated methods for estimating stature, age at death, and sex in one of the individuals under study as part of the Word of Mouth project. The team also showed the Principal several pathologies identifed in the individual's skeleton that suggest that she was both disabled and active in manual work during her lifetime.

Principal Mapstone commented that the visit was "a highlight of her term" and that she was fascinated -- as a medievalist herself -- by being face-to-face with the remains of an individual who lived and worked in the Middle Ages.