Boffins have discovered that an Iron Age woman who died about 2,000 years ago, had earache and was disabled.

She was laid to rest aged between 35 and 40 in a special burial ground in the Yorkshire Dales.

Archaeologists at Bradford University have been studying her skeleton - minus her feet - which was unearthed by Yorkshire Electricity workers near Kettlewell last autumn.

Freelance archaeologist Kevin Cale, who oversaw the removal of the bones, is now awaiting carbon dating evidence from Oxford University to give an even more exact time of her death.

But experts at Bradford are as certain as they can be that the body was that of a woman.

"They believe she was aged between 35 and 40 years-old when she died. She was disabled in one leg and had an abscess round the ear which showed as evidence on the bone so she was likely to have been deaf in one ear. There was also evidence she had mild spina bifida," said Mr Cale.

She was likely to have lived in the iron age before the Romans arrived in Britain in AD70. "Everything points to that," added Mr Cale.

Since the find he has been working with Kettlewell School examining the archaeological environment in the area. He was preparing more work for next term.

Mr Cale was employed by Yorkshire Electricity to oversee the dig because the Yorkshire Dales National Park was aware new electricity poles being laid between Starbotton and Buckden, would go through an ancient burial ground.

He said he suspected the feet were accidentally destroyed when the previous pole was put up by machine many years ago. On this occasion the digging was done by hand because planning regulations had been tightened up.

After Mr Cale has completed his findings and written a report it is hoped the bones can reburied at the site and a tag placed on a pole warning that they are buried nearby.

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