Some insights into the lives of builders of early Saint Petersburg

In 2014, the unexpected discovery of some mass graves shed light on the earliest days of the newly founded city of Saint Petersburg. The graves could be dated to the beginning of the 18th century, and analyses of the 255 excavated skeletons indicate that the individuals buried there were some of the workers who were forced to the construction sites and contributed tobuilding early Saint Petersburg. In this article, we aim to examine the possible origins of the workers and their general living conditions, including pathologies, diet and nutrition. For this, we will use various methods from archaeology, anthropology and isotopic analyses, and we will give some insights into the lives of those people.