A number of human remains were unearthed during the excavation of foundations for The John Paul II Centre. In all eight articulated skeletons were unearthed which, sadly, had suffered various degrees of damage because of the building of the centre and the work a decade ago on the car park. These were in distinct grave cuts, oriented east-west in the Christian manner but without any evidence of being buried in a coffin. Most were adults. One was the body of a child less than one year old. In addition the disarticulated remains of a number of individuals were also recovered suggesting that the area had been used as a cemetery over a considerable period with the original graves being disturbed by later burials. In total fifteen skeletons that were threatened by the building of the centre were removed for analysis. This showed that seven were probably those of women aged at least 36. Of the remaining three one was a man aged over 46, one of an individual whose sex could not be determine, again aged more than 46, and one was of a less than one year old infant, again of undetermined sex.

Because of the poor state of the bones recovered it was impossible to make a very detailed assessment of the health of the individuals concerned. The observations that were made mainly concerned the ages of the individuals: dental disease (abscesses, gum disease, missing teeth) degenerative joint disease such as arthritis and changes tom the frontal bone of the skull. Several of the individuals had a thickening on the inner surface of the frontal bone of the skull. More common in women than in men over the age of forty this is believed to be caused by hormonal changes this would have been without obvious symptoms other than, in some cases, dizziness and headaches. The bones were subjected to radiocarbon dating which gave a burial date of between AD 640 and 770.

On the 21^st of May 2011 one of the skeletons became part of a local history exhibition held at Bicester’s Methodist Church where it was labelled as ‘Bicester’s Oldest Resident?’.