Abstract
Trauma analysis yields essential information on human interactions, socio-cultural practices and levels of violence in past societies. Little is known on population dynamics in the northern Italian Alps that were crossed by Germanic cultures during the Early Middle Ages. An archaeological excavation in Säben-Sabiona, South Tyrol (Italy) exposed an early medieval church and cemetery (5th-8th centuries AD) indicating communal use by local (Roman) and non-local (Germanic) groups. This study focuses on the reconstruction of bone injury mechanisms as well as their prevalence in early medieval Säben-Sabiona. Trauma was assessed through macroscopic and metric analyses. Both crude, injuries per individual, and true prevalence rates, trauma per bone, were calculated. The osteological remains (n=8044) of 226 Individuals have been studied to establish injury distribution and frequency. Two percent (130/8044) of the analysed bones and 17.7% (40/226) of the examined individuals featured trauma. The most common injuries were antemortem fractures on 58 bones, most of which were located on the appendicular skeleton (25/130), and perimortem sharp force trauma on 46 bones that were predominantly found on the right craniofacial region (10/130). Generally, each injured individual featured less than five traumata, however seven individuals account for 50% (65/130) of the observed lesions. With a 90.8% (118/130) incident rate, adult males exhibited significantly more trauma than females and subadults. The trauma investigation suggests that most of the injured buried in early medieval Säben-Sabiona experienced skeletal injuries associated with accidents and only a few, all of which were males, display signs of contemplated violence.