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National Geographic : 1982 Jan
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CROWNCOPYRIGHT,VICTORIAANDALBERTMUSEUM, LONDON COLONIALWILLIAMSBURGFOUNDATION(ABOVE, BELOW,ANDRIGHT) "We called her Granny" SHUS NICKNAMED because she had lost all her lower molars, although probably about40 years old, the woman had died a poignant death. Bit by bit, her remains (right)gave the archaeologists evidence of a cruel demise. She lay in a trashpit outside the homestead at the Suburb, a site replete with clues such as other skeletons, ashes, and part of a burned post ringed by scorched clay. At first only Granny's left leg was visible. Gently, the excavatorsprobed deeper and finally uncovered the bones of a woman lying on her side, one arm to her head, the other across her chest, fingers folded. When the author became ill with a fever and awoke one morning in the same position,he reasoned that Granny might not have been thrown into the pit, as he first believed, but reached it under her own power and died in a sleeping position. But the real telltale evidence was wrapped around her head: the remnant of a metal-cored fabric supportfor a hairstyle popular among Elizabethan women. A Flemish engraving made about 1610 (above left) shows one such hair roll, elaborateand jeweled. Granny's had a pewter knob at one end, and was awry (bottom left). An X ray of her skull (middle) shows the hair roll as a white line. The pewter knob, lower right, is in place below her right ear.The rest of the roll should bein an arcover thetop ofher head. Instead, it has been bent back-as if yanked by a scalp seeking Indian (page52). Wounded, she may have crawled into the hole to hide, and drifted into an endless sleep. __ ~_~_~_ - -- _
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