Bodies of nine adults and five children found beneath Edinburgh car park were 'from Dark-ages'

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Forensic analysis of 14 bodies found beneath a car park in Edinburgh 40 years ago revealed they were 'well-connected' individuals who travelled to the city - during the Dark Ages.

The bodies of nine adults and five children were discovered in Cramond, Edinburgh, in 1975 and were originally thought to be from the 14th century.

But radiocarbon dating found them to be 800 years older, dating back to the 6th century.Experts were called in after the remains of a stone building were found during the building of a new car park for the village.It turned out to be remnants of a Roman bathhouse, which became renowned as one of the best-preserved buildings of the era.Now further work on the remains have revealed new details of their lives and that several of the group travelled across Scotland to make Cramond their home.Scientists examined their bones and teeth and were able to look at the diet and where each person in the group was from.Despite being buried near each other - leading to assumptions that they were one family - researchers discovered some were brought up hundreds of miles apart.Analysis also found one of the women and young child endured a violent death after suffering blows to the head, possibly with the butt end of a spear.Professor Kate Britton, from the University of Aberdeen, said: "Food and water consumed during life leave a specific signature in the body which can be traced back to their input source, evidencing diet and mobility patterns."Tooth enamel, particularly from teeth which form between around three and six years of age, act like little time capsules containing chemical information about where a person grew up."When we examined the remains, we found six of them to bear chemical signatures consistent