Shattered 700-year-old skeleton could be earliest-known victim of popular siege weapon

A shattered skeleton found in the ruins of Scotland’s Stirling Castle likely belongs to the world’s earliest-known trebuchet victim, according to a new study.“Skeleton 150”, as the remains are known, belonged to a man in his 20s who died during a siege of the castle about 700 years ago. He died from a massive blow that shattered his skull and pinned him to the ground. “While the use of siege engines is well documented, we believe this is the first evidence of trebuchet trauma in the archaeological record,” researchers noted in the study presented at the European meeting of the Paleopathology Association in Berlin last week.In the study, archaeologists examined nine skeletons unearthed at the Stirling Castle for evidence of trauma related to the Scottish Wars of Independence of 1296-1328 an