Series: Ministry of Defence unpublished report series

The 2019 season of recovery of human remains from the cliff face on Burrow Island (Rat Island) following winter erosion, Undertaken by Op Nightingale veterans, archaeologists and Royal Military Police This was not collected in OASIS IV when this record was originally createdFurther erosion at Burrow Island (known as Rat Island) – an MOD asset between Gosport and Portsmouth on the south coast of England – resulted in additional human remains being eroded from a cliff that had already been examined in 2014 and 2017. A team undertook recovery work in March 2019 to retrieve these remains and bones from a minimum number of seven adults and one infant (0-1 years of age) were found. These displayed various pathological traits. The finding of two bones of an infant was unusual; the first occasion that this project team has encountered remains of such a young individual. If the human remains represent burials of those who died upon the prison hulks of the 18th and 19th centuries (as most documentary sources seem to point towards), then this raises interesting questions about the incarcerated demographic