My continuing cutsie title alliteration alludes to a somber discovery, a young woman who suffered maternal death thousands of years ago and deserves a moment of quiet comtemplation and respect today.  From a press release by the University of Barcellona:  In ancient times, female death rates were particularly high and generally related to problems in maternity, such as complications during pregnancy, childbirth or the period of breast-feeding. However, in most cases this link has only been established from indirect data, such paleodemographic data and ethnographic references, or based on the poor health conditions normally attributed to ancient human groups.

Joint research between the UAB and the Universidad de Murcia has found a clear example of an ancient burial of a pregnant woman whose death can be linked to difficult birth (dystocia). The archaeological team from the Universidad de Murcia, headed by Maria Manuela Ayala, found the remains in 1996 at the “El cerro de las Viñas” site in Murcia (Spain). Now, the UAB anthropologists, headed by Assumpció Malgosa, have established that it is the oldest case so far described in the paleopathological literature.  The research was recently published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.

The burial dates from the Argaric period, between 1,500 and 1,000 years BC, in the Bronze Age. Argaric culture funeral rituals were characterised by individual inhumations, most of them within the dwelling or its perimeter. This burial is within one of these dwellings. It is that of a young woman, about 25-26 years of age, with a foetus in the 37th to 39th week of gestation in the uterine cavity, in a crosswise position and with part of the right arm outside the uterus.

In line with modern obstetric practices, the study of the two individuals and differential diagnosis has enabled the probable cause of death of the mother, and therefore the foetus, to be established as dystocia due to position of the foetus. Without a caesarean section, the mother probably died of sepsis, haemorrhage and exhaustion during the birth, and the foetus of heart failure.