Posted on 12/18/2024 5:21:40 PM PST by nickcarraway
New research suggests that dozens of Bronze-Age era Britons were killed in an attack unlike any previous known to archaeologists studying that time period and location.
The research on human remains from Charterhouse Warren in southwest England, conducted by a team of researchers from multiple institutions including Oxford University, was published in Antiquity, a journal of world archaeology. It found that at least 37 Bronze Age-era men, women and children were "killed and butchered" and then cannibalized, with their bodies then thrown down a nearly 50-foot deep natural shaft. While archaeologists have found the remains of Bronze Age and later Britons who died violently, those incidents were largely isolated. Mass graves from this era have also been found, but the remains were laid to rest respectfully, unlike those studied.
Researchers first became aware of the shaft in the 1970s. Two excavations were conducted in the 1970s and 1980s. The human remains, as well as some artifacts including a flint dagger, were found at multiple spots in the shaft during these digs. More than 3,000 individual human bones and bone fragments have been recovered overall. Those bones were used to estimate that at least 37 individual sets of remains were in the shaft. Different bone lengths show that the people killed were both male and female, and ranged in age from infants to grown adults. Ongoing research is working to determine how the people were related to each other.
The way the remains were disposed of made the detailed examination possible, the researchers said. The shaft helped preserve the bones and keep them grouped together.
Cambridge University Press on behalf of Antiquity Publications Ltd The bones "display clear evidence of blunt force trauma," according to researchers, suggesting that many of the people in the shaft "suffered a violent death." Other injuries, including removal of the scalp and severed muscles in the jaw suggesting removal of the tongue or lower jaw, also likely occurred, evidenced by marks on the bones, the researchers said. Some of the victims may have been beheaded or dismembered.
It's possible that the victims were held captive or ambushed, because of the severity of the injuries, the researchers said. It's not clear who could have carried out the attacks.
There is also evidence that the bodies were cannibalized, the researchers said, including human teethmarks on the bones and indicators that marrow, the soft tissue inside bones, was removed. The researchers said the cannibalism was likely conducted "within a context of a violent conflict, in which individuals are dehumanized and treated as animals."
"Some 37 men, women and children—and possibly many more—were killed at close quarters with blunt instruments and then systematically dismembered and defleshed, their long bones fractured in a way that can only be described as butchery," the researchers said.
Later in the publication, the researchers referred to the scene as a "massacre," and suggested it may have even been a "political statement" of violence so brazen it would have "resonated across the wider region and over time." However, it's not clear what could have led to the violence: "Neither climate change, ethnic conflict nor competition over material resources seem to offer convincing explanations," according to the researchers, leaving the only likely option that the violence broke out as part of a pattern of revenge or violence between communities.
"At this stage, our investigation has raised as many questions as it has answered," the researchers said. "Work is ongoing to shed more light on this decidedly dark episode in British prehistory."
(If anybody gets that.)
The probably elected a female to lead them. BIG MISTAKE, as they later learned the hard way.
“However, it’s not clear what could have led to the violence: “Neither CLIMATE CHANGE, ethnic conflict nor competition over material resources seem to offer convincing explanations,””
I doubt they were all that concerned about sea levels rising a few inches in the next 50 years especially because they were lucky to live half as long.
This is only unusual in that the evidence was preserved in this way.
Cannabalism and massacres are actually common in pre-history.
The best reference for the general public is the book: War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage.
In those ancient days truly monstrous tribes wandered the Earth.
How do they know it was a massacre and not the work of a serial killer who murdered and ate these people over the course of a few year years?
Brit. It’s What’s for Dinner.
Need to emulate the tactics given the times we live in
“Well, a small group of us were invited over to the new neighbor’s house for dinner. So, we thought, ‘What the heck, let’s check it out.” We enter the house, and we are lead to the kitchen, not the dinning room. That was the first clue that something was, you know... amiss!”
WOW! Sounds like the Crow Creek Massacre in the Americas in 1325AD. Over 450 Men women, children killed, scalped, butchered and left for the buzzards.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/9/crow-creek-massacre-in-1300s-remains-south-dakotas/
An oldie:
Why don’t cannibals eat clowns?
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Because they taste funny!
The other white meat.
LOL! Side of sweet potato. Thanks nickcarraway.
"Climate change"? Seriously??
You have to throw that term in there somewhere to get a grant.
Eisenhower warned us of this.
I don’t think sweet potatoes had yet been introduced to Europe.
Yeah, and? That pertained to nick’s joke.
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