Posted on 03/12/2010 5:09:48 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
London, England (CNN) -- They were 51 young men who met a grisly death far from home, their heads chopped off and their bodies thrown into a mass grave.
Their resting place was unknown until last year, when workers excavating for a road near the London 2012 Olympic sailing venue in Weymouth, England, unearthed the grave. But questions remained about who the men were, how long they had been there and why they had been decapitated.
On Friday, officials revealed that analysis of the men's teeth shows they were Vikings, executed with sharp blows to the head around a thousand years ago. They were killed during the Dark Ages, when Vikings frequently invaded the region.
"To find out that the young men executed were Vikings is a thrilling development," said David Score, project manager for Oxford Archaeology, which excavated the remains. "Any mass grave is a relatively rare find, but to find one on this scale, from this period of history, is extremely unusual and presents an incredible opportunity to learn more about what is happening in Dorset at this time."
Radiocarbon dating had already placed the remains between A.D. 890 and 1030, before the Norman conquest of Anglo-Saxon England.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Mmmmm....criminal mischief and mayhem! :-)
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between you and me I think he and I both were berserker progeny. sory to upset yer da.
How do you know your hubby “does not”? is he totally void of all pinkish/reddish hairs?
If he’s a wimp tell me now and tell me where to go...I’ll slaughter his pinkless ass and take ya for my own!
lol, I’m being silly. don’t sic the blond dude on me, please.
Many of the executed men suffered multiple wounds, inflicted by a sharp-bladed weapon, to the skull, jaw and upper spine, all thought to relate to the process of decapitation, the Dorset County Council said.
Some men show evidence of other wounds, including a cut to the pelvis, blows to the chest and stomach, and defensive injuries to the hands, the council said.
The bones still appear cleanly sliced, indicating the men suffered a "sword-based execution," Evans said.
This is somebody, I think, trying to apply modern forensic rules to tenth-century battlefields. After reading all of the story, I don't see any reason to conclude that these were "executions" at all. Wounds to hands aren't necessarily merely "defensive" wounds. They're entirely normal wounds on a battlefield. Curiously enough there are also sword wounds to legs, pelvises, and other parts of the body. Looks like a hard-fought battle to me.
That the cuts were "clean"... well... that's what happens when you cut somebody with a sword. They tend cut stuff sortof... off. Heads... arms... legs... that's what they were for.
not only do I drink sea water...I’m made of it!
My strontium levels are known far and wide.
Sword ping... the Viking Edition. :-)
are you trying to shore up my theory? cuz your last statement was going to be my followup argument.
neandertal genes are the berserker genes that were passed on to red haired british folk.
that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it!
I got your back on that theory! Just as a matter of public safety, however, I am recommending to our Fearlessly Ineligible Leader, that Federal Laws be passed preventing the ingestion of Lutefisk by red-headed people.
Berserkers on Lutefisk? I'll bet the Geneva Convention never even dreamed of it!
LOL
I’m going to try tHAT kind of fish at my next family ruinion. then watch the mayhem.
there’s been a multi generational-long discussion in my family that there is something wrong with us. We have tempers...we have unusual sensitivities to certian foods and certain aerosols. We don’t feel pain. We get strange ailments affecting brain function that are identical to migrain headaches yet the pain is absent. We can endure surgery without pain medication.
we have unusually large skulls and unusually strong backs and unusually voluminous rib cages. The rest of our anatomy is entirely normal or less than normal. We are not athletic in the usual sense although we do outperform others of equal weight in certain tasks.
We have decided that we are mutants and the mutant gene is coming from our red haired genes that were passed on to us from the berserkers...and that the neandertals were the ones that passed it on to the berserkers.
this is pure speculation, of course.
you can sue the aboriginal europeans for making your great great great great great grand dad’s invasion difficult. that’s about it.
Cult of the severed head?
Quite well put. It was commonplace to have “friendly fire” wounds during the dense hand-to-hand melee’.
A couple of these family parties, and you can see why many Vikings couldn't wait to clear out to go a-viking, and considered even medieval Irish and English cuisine kinda nifty!
"Jeez, Olaf, ve live here, ney! Dese people EAT GUDE!"
"Dat's right Ragnar. Dey doan even knew vat Lutefisk ISS!"
No heads found? How did they analyze the teeth and determine they were killed by a blow to the head?
When my oldest soon needed to have his wisdom teeth pulled, we were surprised to discover that he had six. The dentist asked whether he had Esquimo blood. We know is father was 1/16 Cree indian, a Canadian tribe. Guess the Esquimos got the teeth the Sami lost. ;-)
Friendly or otherwise. Poeple start swinging sharp swords around and stuff pretty soon starts to get cut... sortof... off.
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