Women from the Bronze Age already carried heavy loads on their heads, skeletal analysis finds

Women from the Bronze Age already carried heavy loads on their heads, skeletal analysis finds

An interdisciplinary study led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) reveals that women living in the region of Nubia (present-day Sudan) developed skeletal changes adapted to bearing heavy loads on their heads starting in the Bronze Age more than 3,500 years ago.

Bronze Age Nubian women carried heavy loads on their heads, study reveals

In the dry plains of ancient Nubia—modern-day Sudan—women were not just pillars of their households but true bearers of the community’s weight, according to a groundbreaking interdisciplinary study published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. Artist¿s illustration of Individual 8A2, a mature adult woman, engaged in high-mobility activities such as herding while carrying an infant in a basket using a tumpline, a few years before being…

Research led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) has found evidence that Bronze Age women, more than three thousand five hundred years ago, were already carrying heavy weights on their heads every day, an activity that caused modifications to their skeleton. The study has been published in the scientific journal ‘Journal of Anthropological Archaeology’ and, according to the UAB press release, aimed to “understand how daily work shaped…