On May 18th 2018, the Scottish soldiers from the Battle of Dunbar (1650) who had been discovered and excavated in 2013 from Durham University’s Palace Green Library were reburied in a poignant and reflective ceremony in Durham City.
Face Lab – Facial depiction of one of the Scottish Soldiers

In early March 2017, Mark Roughley and Isabel Hengelhaupt (research assistant and postgraduate research student respectively) from Face Lab at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), made the journey from Liverpool to the Department of Archaeology at Durham University to make 3D scans of the skeletal remains of the Scottish Soldier known as Skeleton 22 (SK22).
Commemorating the Scottish soldiers
Scottish Soldiers Archaeology Project Team visit USA
Mitochondrial DNA analysis

The aim of this initial ancient DNA analysis was two-fold. Firstly, to assess the biomolecular preservation and the presence of endogenous ancient DNA in a representative number of samples and tissues from the remains found at Palace Green. Secondly, to try to match skeletal elements found in the same trench that were suspected to belong to the same individual during excavation but that came back with very different age assessments during osteological analysis.
Searching for places of origin
Palaeopathology and Scurvy

The various medical conditions suffered by the Scottish Soldiers is one area that we have investigated in quite a lot of detail. We have already blogged about some of the dental problems the soldiers suffered from and about the work being done in York looking at dental plaque. In today’s post we are going to look at scurvy, which is something we think some of the soldiers may have suffered from.