NEFYN, WALES—A cist grave containing a woman’s skeleton has been unearthed at a church in North Wales. The site is thought to have been part of a medieval monastic settlement, based upon the discovery of a wall that is missing from early maps of the area. The woman in the grave, which had been covered with a large, flat stone, had been in her 60s and suffered from some arthritis when she died sometime between A.D. 1180 and 1250. Human remains from this period are rare in Wales because of the acidity of the soil. “This type of grave is generally believed to be of an early medieval date, although due to the lack of surviving skeletal remains this hypothesis often goes untested,” Catherine Rees of CR Archaeology told Culture 24. “She would have lived through some very turbulent times in Welsh history and could have lived through the rise to power of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, or as he is more well known, Llywelyn the Great, as he consolidated north and much of Wales under his control. She may have also been alive when the famous medieval chronicler, Gerald of Wales, stayed at Nefyn in 1188 as part of a campaign to raise support for the third crusade,” she added. Studies of the isotopes in the woman’s teeth could reveal if she grew up in the area. She may have been a local resident, or she may have been a pilgrim on the route to the Christian site of Bardsey Island. To read about a similar discovery, see "Cathedral Grave May Have Belonged to a Medieval Knight."