Rachel Scott, DePaul University
Title: Warfare, Weapons and Skeletal Trauma in Early Medieval Ireland

Description: The contemporary documents depict early medieval Ireland as a society continually at war. While the sagas glorify the exploits of the male warrior, the annals record occurrences of armed combat and countless acts of other violence. In contrast, the archaeological record and human remains yield little evidence of warfare. Excavations have uncovered only occasional weapons and dubious settlement defenses, and skeletal analyses have produced few cases of trauma caused by interpersonal violence. Dr. Scott’s talk will explore the discrepancy between the various lines of evidence and illuminate the nature of warfare in early medieval Ireland. She will show that the main military activity was the hit-and-run cattle raid, which may not have required iron weapons or substantial defenses or have resulted in significant bodily injury. Yet by providing combat training for young men, enhancing the prestige of successful leaders, and supplying cows for procuring clients, the stealing of cattle played an important role in early Irish society.

Rachel Scott is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at DePaul University. She holds degrees from the University of Chicago (BA), University College Dublin, Ireland (Higher Diploma in Celtic Archaeology), and the University of Pennsylvania (PhD). Her research interests include human osteology and paleopathology, European archaeology, and anthropological and archaeological theory. More specifically, her work integrates human skeletal, archaeological, and historical data in order to examine the processes of identity formation and the social construction of disease in early and late medieval Ireland. Dr. Scott is currently involved in two field projects, as the director of a project on leper hospitals in late medieval Ireland and as the bioarchaeologist for the Irish Archaeology Field School’s excavation at the Black Friary in Trim, Co. Meath.

For more information about Rachel Scott see:

• http://las.depaul.edu/departments/anthropology/Faculty/Pages/rachel-scott.aspx