Towton battlefield archaeology.

[ganulv]

The description of blows to the head and forensics sounds like writer was a cop. Fantastic details !

Paleopathologists can be a little, umm, quirky, but they can do some interesting stuff. For her dissertation research my friend Carlina analyzed a skeletal collection representing the remains of late 19th and early 20th century male laborers and found substantive differences in trauma along ethnic lines (Euro-American remains in the collection showed a higher incidence of fractures than did African American remains and African American remains showed a higher incidence of weapon–related trauma than did Euro-American remains).

One in ten on one day. Has that level of participation been seen on any other battlefield?

That’s an interesting question. I can think of instances involving American Indian groups—the Mohican lost such a large portion of their adult male population in one engagement during the Revolutionary War that they were subsequently released from service—all relatively small groups in terms of total population. Nothing immediately comes to mind regarding larger polities. The Paraguayan War resulted in massive population loss in terms of percentage but I don’t know anything about particular events over its course.