Details
In November 2013 two mass burials were discovered unexpectedly on a construction site in the city of Durham in north-east England. Over the next 2 years, a complex jigsaw of evidence was pieced together by a team of archaeologists to establish the identity of the human remains. Today we know them to be some of the Scottish prisoners who died in the autumn of 1650 in Durham cathedral and castle following the battle of Dunbar on the south-east coast of Scotland. Fought between the English and the Scots, this was one of the key engagements of the War of the Three Kingdoms. Using the latest techniques of skeleton science, this book gives back to the men a voice through an understanding of their childhood and later lives. Archaeological and historical evidence also allows us to reconstruct with vivid accuracy how and why these men vanished off the historical radar. Of the prisoners who survived their ordeal after Dunbar, new evidence has emerged about their involvement in local industries and in one of the great infrastructural projects of the day, the draining of the Fens. Others were sent far away, transported to the colonies as indentured servants to begin a new life at the edge of the known world. Following the trail of their biographies takes us across the Atlantic where the Dunbar men supported each other throughout their lives on the frontiers of New England. Here they worked in ironworks and sawmills, farmed and fished and adapted to the vast forested landscapes which they named ‘Scotland’ and ‘Unity’, after the vessel they had sailed in. None returned to the country of their birth. Lost Lives, New Voices is a collaboration between academic researchers and professional archaeologists working on the Scottish Soldiers Research Project.
Table of Contents
Reviews & Quotes
"This book will be of interest to both specialist and non-specialist readers.[…]It is well written, clearly structured and very accessible. It is impossible not to be moved by the evocative dedication to the living descendents of the surviving men who were transported to the colonies."
Angela Boyle
Archaeological Journal
(15/12/2021)
"Rich with first-hand accounts of extraordinary events and individuals this is a real rarity among archaeological reports: a page-turner."
Paul Stamper
British Archaeology
(09/08/2018)
"[Lost Lives, New Voices] contains highly valuable and new information that historians of early modern Britain and Ireland will find useful. It is packed with illustrations and is written in an accessible manner. Attractively produced, it should appeal to a cross-section of professionals who work in the history and heritage sectors […] This book is a fresh and valuable contribution to the literature on the English Republic: it provides a rare glimpse into the lives of ordinary men whose fortunes were changed utterly on the 3 September 1650."
Dr Kirsteen M. Mackenzie
Northern History
(22/01/2021)
