Among the remains buried near to the knight were those of a woman – a weapon had punched two neat, square holes through her skull. Her brutal death raised many questions, partly because evidence of female victims of medieval warfare is very rare.

In this Thursday’s History Cold Case programme, on BBC 2 at 9pm, Dr Jo Buckberry, a biological anthropologist from the University of Bradford, sheds light on just what happened to her. But Historic Scotland and Dr Buckberry believe that the great advances in scientific techniques since the skeletons were found in 1997 mean that we are perfectly placed to find out more about the entire group.



Radiocarbon dating has already shown that they are all likely to have died between the early 1200s and the mid-1450s. The fact that they were buried in a previously unknown royal chapel indicates that they were important people, and also suggests that they died during extreme situations such as sieges.

Dr Buckberry and colleagues will study all the skeletons, which include two infants, to try and find out where they were from, what sort of food they ate and what happened to them. We may also find out more about any illnesses and conditions they suffered from and what ages they were when they died.

Some of the skeletons are relatively complete but others are fragmentary, which will affect how much information we can expect to discover about them. One intriguing avenue of research will be to compare the Stirling results to those of soldiers found in mass graves who were killed at the Battle of Towton, the decisive clash of England’s Wars of the Roses, in 1461.