By WILIAM HUNTER, SENIOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER<\/p>\n
Published: 13:45 BST, 13 August 2026 | Updated: 13:58 BST, 13 August 2026<\/p>\n
Scientists have found the remains of a soldier in Scotland's Stirling Castle who may be one of the unluckiest people in history.<\/p>\n
This man in his 20s has the dubious honour of being the first confirmed victim of a trebuchet attack, according to new evidence presented at the European meeting of the Paleopathology Association.<\/p>\n
These fearsome weapons of war are similar to a catapult, and capable of hurling a projectile weighing over 100 kg hundreds of metres over castle walls.<\/p>\n
Now, archaeologists have uncovered the grisly reality of what happens to someone unfortunate enough to catch a direct hit from one of those flying stones.<\/p>\n
The soldier, known to scientists as skeleton 150, bears the evidence of an enormous, high-velocity impact that shattered his bones and pinned him to the ground.<\/p>\n
Dr Jo Buckberry, from the University of Bradford, found over 160 different fractures on the 160-cm-tall remains.<\/p>\n
The skull was cracked in 61 places, there was a deep, zigzag break on the shoulder, and nearly 60 bizarre, jagged breaks on his ribs.<\/p>\n
Dr Buckberry told Science: 'The breaks indicate a very large area of impact and devastation. It\u2019s likely the individual was killed by a siege engine.'<\/p>\n
A skeleton of a soldier found in Scotland's Stirling Castle has been identified as the first confirmed victim of a trebuchet attack, which broke their skull (pictured) in 60 places\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the siege, English forces deployed the largest trebuchet ever constructed, a terrifying weapon known as War Wolf . Pictured: A modern reconstruction of War Wolf<\/p>\n
Skeleton 150 was discovered in 1997, when scientists unearthed the graves of nine skeletons beneath the chapel in Stirling Castle.<\/p>\n
Five of these were found to date back to the early 1300s, and all bore the injuries and cut marks that indicated violent lives and deaths.<\/p>\n
However, those signs of violence were hardly surprising, given that Stirling Castle was besieged and changed hands five times between 1296 and 1304, when it finally fell to English forces.<\/p>\n