In 1461, 28,000 men lost their lives at the Battle of Towton during the War of the Roses between the future Yorkist King Edward IV and the current Lancastrian King Henry VI. It was the largest loss of life in combat on British soil. The location of the battlefield is well documented, as is the loss of life, but where are the bodies in the burial pits? In 1996, Towton Hall put shovels in the ground to build a new garage and immediately hit human skeletons. The story of the discovery, the Battle of Towton, and the forensic recovery of the bodies are laid bare in this book. It makes for fascinating reading. ( )

The book is really a set of academic papers (each in a different speciality) that set out to add to our knowledge of British medieval warfare and the battle of Towton in particular. The focus of the analysis is a mass grave found at the battle site with the text going perhaps unnecessarily deeply into the methodology of excavation, bone analysis etc. and producinga set of rather confusing results.

Some questions are; Why were the men a mile from the centre of the battle? Why did they have mostly front facing head wounds and very few lower body injuries? Why was so little recovered from the battle site, especially since the rare arrow heads finds were so well preserved?

The authors make a good presentation of the usually neglected common soldier showing his physical condition (from a small sample) and leaning heavily on the unique "Bridport Muster Roll" for typical 15th century arms and equipment. This says that 25% of the recruits arrived with shields (bucklers and pavises) but the book curiously attributes the lack of lower body wounds entirely to various types of body armour. Equally the strong left arm elbow bone structure is attributed to holding a longbow without considering that it could be caused by shield use. Personal experience with a true weight medieval shield shows that it puts a heavy stress on the arm and elbow. ( )

As a fan of historical fiction about the Wars of the Roses, I was fascinated by this true account of the discovery of a mass grave from the Battle of Towton in North Yorkshire, said to be the bloodiest battle every fought on English soil. The gravesite was uncovered by chance in 1996, touching off a major research project on the causes of death of the soldiers, their health status in life, battlefield conditions and landscape, weaponry, fighting techniques, and more. The book is a collection of essays by the experts in the various fields. Highly recommended! ( )