Post mortem fetal extrusion: Analysis of a coffin birth case from an Early Medieval cemetery along the Via Francigena in Tuscany (Italy)

Abstract

Death was a common factor during pregnancy and childbirth in both past and recent societies. Nevertheless, the recording of women from archaeological contexts still featuring a fetus in the pelvic cavity or dystocia is very rare. Even less frequent are cases of post mortem fetal extrusion.At the archaeological site of San Genesio (San Miniato, Pisa), a stoppage point along the Via Francigena, the cemetery phases dating from the 6th to the 13th century were investigated. In one of the phases dating to the Early Medieval period, the skeleton of a female individual of about thirty years of age, deceased during the 32nd week of pregnancy, was documented. The fetus was positioned between the femurs, in the opposite orientation to that of the mother. Taphonomic analysis, comparative review of other forensic and archaeological cases and the anthropological study of the recorded skeletons suggest that, due to the accumulation of gas during the emphysematous phase of decomposition, the fetus would have been expelled from the mother’s pelvic cavity before the bodies were completely covered by soil. We can define this finding as one of those rare cases of “coffin birth” in an archaeological context.