London's earliest ladies
3 October 2002
Together for the first time: London's earliest ladies.
A cosmopolitan woman, concerned by her looks, interested in international design, and with a taste for fine wine – could this be the first true London lady? From 18 October 2002, the remains of the oldest female to have been found within central London will join a detailed facial reconstruction of the earliest known Greater London woman on display at the Museum of London. Together, they will show what it was like to be one of the capital’s first ladies.
The earlier skeleton, dated between 3640 and 3100BC, was found in Staines Road Farm in Shepperton in 1989. Following detailed work carried out by Caroline Wilkinson of the University of Manchester, a facial reconstruction can now be unveiled for the first time. It shows a woman with striking but heavy features, who died when she was between 30 and 40 years old. Forensic examination of her worn teeth reveals that far from being born a suburban Londoner she, like many who came after her, was a migrant to the area.
Deposits of lead found in her teeth suggest she spent her childhood in either Derbyshire, the Mendips or the Pennines. She would have arrived in the Thames valley at a time when communities were no longer nomadic hunter-gatherers but beginning to settle in specific locations. Her burial in a sacred site rather than in the river or above ground suggests that, coming from outside the local area, she had been afforded special status within the community.
Over three and a half thousand years later, a second lady was buried in a Roman cemetery at Harper Road in Southwark. Born in prehistoric times, c.AD50-70, she witnessed the coming of the Romans and died in her forties a citizen of the Roman Empire. Whereas Shepperton Woman would have adopted local customs, the Harper Road Lady found herself caught between several cultures. Her burial indicates that she and her family had taken to the cosmopolitan lifestyle and even embraced some Roman beliefs.
A decorated bronze Iron Age torc, or neck ring, suggests that she may have been a native Briton, but her grave also contained a polished bronze Italian mirror and a pottery flagon from the continent, which probably contained wine for her journey to the next world. It is unlikely that she thought of herself as a Briton but rather as a member of a local clan or tribe, and was probably upwardly mobile – a wannabe of her generation. But the presence of a mirror suggests she had a strong interest in her appearance, a trait frowned upon by the cultured Romans who looked down their noses at the ‘painted’ Britons.
The Harper Road Lady was alive at a defining moment in British history, and her death closes a door on the silent 20,000 and more generations of prehistoric people who went before her. Together with the Shepperton Woman, she shows a glimpse into the lives of the very first female Londoners, before their worlds were changed forever by the arrival of the city.
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Editor’s Note
The Harper Road Lady and the Shepperton Woman will be on display in the Museum of London’s new prehistoric gallery, London before London, opening on 18 October 2002.