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Posted on 03/25/2026 7:19:24 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Archaeologists have analyzed a mass grave in southeastern Europe that held the remains of women and children who were violently murdered 2,800 years ago...
The grave was unearthed at the archaeological site of Gomolava, located near the modern town of Hrtkovci in northern Serbia. Originally founded as a settlement on the Sava River in the sixth millennium B.C., both settled and mobile cultural groups used Gomolava repeatedly over the centuries. By the ninth century B.C., semisedentary groups in the Carpathian Basin were consolidating around sites like Gomolava, creating tension over land use and ownership...
Archaeologists discovered postholes around the burial pit that suggested there had been some sort of memorialization of the grave. The pit also contained ceramic vessels and small, bronze accessories, along with the bones of nearly 100 animals, including the complete skeleton of a young cow at the very bottom of the grave.
But when the researchers began to study the 77 human skeletons in the pit, they found that more than 70% of the skeletons were female and 69% were children.
...the researchers studied the individuals' DNA. This analysis revealed that only a handful of the 77 people had close biological ties, which suggests that the killing was not a raid on a settlement of extended families. A study of the skeletons' strontium isotope ratios -- a chemical variant found in dental enamel that is influenced by geographic origin -- also showed that more than one-third of the people grew up outside the Gomolava region...
A second mass grave was also found at Gomolava in 1954. That pit held mostly female skeletons in addition to the bones of animals, metal objects and ceramics that date to the same era.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
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At least 77 individuals were buried at Gomolava, but the vast majority are women and children. [One of Europe’s largest Iron Age mass graves contains mostly women and children | Andrew Paul | Published February 25, 2026 | Popular Science]Credit: Museum of Vojvodina / Nature Human Behaviour
The weekly digest, a bit late, the list of topics is below.
The other GGG topics added since the previous digest ping, alpha:
Pagan battles before the advent of Christianity.
Pagan battles before the advent of Christianity.
Pagan battles before the advent of Christianity.
As opposed to the Pax Christiana? As opposed to the Pax Christiana? As opposed to the Pax Christiana?
I think you need a new mouse. I was doing a lot of that awhile back, too.
Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!
Which is something I rarely default to because it is so overused. But in this case, based on the evidence presented, sounds like it.
Probably killed by one of Tony Blair’s ancestors
It is likely that the dead in that pit, the women and children, were brought there from another village where all the men had been killed in a raid or battle. They were all The Spoils of War, meant to be slaves but probably it was hard to feed them all and it was just easier to kill them in a ceremony.
It seems likely that they were tossed in the pit by their killers, who had taken captives over a wide area, then killed them on that spot. Any of the offerings were probably by the locals after the reavers rode on.
Nope, Putin’s.
Thanks for the prompt. I went back and read the entire article. “Geneological disruption.” I never thought of that.
My guess is it was revenge by a conquering army on the citizens of a walled city that eventually fell to a protracted seige. Often this was done deliberately to send a message to other cities not to resist. You read a lot about that sort of thing in Julius Caeser’s “The Conquest of Gaul”.
My pleasure. And “genealogical disruption” does seem like an understatement.
The victims of the Early Iron Age massacre at Gomolava (c. 2,800 years ago) were not a single ethnic or kin group, but rather a genetically diverse “regional meta-population”.
According to a 2026 study published in [Nature Human Behaviour](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02399-9), their identity can be broken down as follows:
* Genetic Ancestry: The victims’ DNA shows a mixture of three primary prehistoric lineages:
* Serbia Iron Gates Mesolithic (Hunter-gatherers).
* Anatolia Neolithic (Early Farmers).
* Samara Yamnaya Early Bronze Age (Steppe pastoralists).
* Population Alignment: Their genetic profiles most closely align with populations from Bronze Age Hungary.
* Geographic Origin: Strontium isotope analysis of their teeth indicates they grew up in widely different locations across the Carpathian Basin. Most were relatively local to the region, but some originated from tens of kilometers away, with at least one individual coming from much further afield.
* Lack of Kinship: Remarkably, with the exception of one mother and her two daughters, the 77 victims were biologically unrelated. This suggests they did not belong to a single family, clan, or even a single village.
* Cultural Context: They were part of a semi-sedentary farming culture that used Kalakača-style ceramics.
Researchers believe they may have been targeted by a different group, possibly semi-nomadic herders, during a period of intense territorial conflict over land use.
[2] [https://www.ancient-origins.net](https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/gomolava-mass-grave-00102540)
[3] [https://www.discovermagazine.com](https://www.discovermagazine.com/a-chilling-massacre-in-prehistoric-serbia-took-the-lives-of-women-and-children-48732)
[4] [https://www.nature.com](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02399-9.pdf)
[5] [https://www.nature.com](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02399-9.pdf)
[6] [https://www.nature.com](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02399-9.pdf)
[7] [https://www.science.org](https://www.science.org/content/article/ancient-mass-grave-serbia-seen-grisly-show-power)
[8] [https://www.ed.ac.uk](https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/mass-killing-uncovered-at-ancient-burial-site)
[9] [https://medium.com](https://medium.com/teatime-history/chosen-to-die-the-prehistoric-massacre-that-targeted-women-and-children-c94c1c2c06e2#:~:text=The%20origin%20of%20the%20victims%20became%20even,non%2Dlocals%20grew%20up%20even%20further%20than%20that.)
[10] [https://holistic.news](https://holistic.news/en/gomolava-mass-grave-77-victims-why-them/)
[11] [https://erc.europa.eu](https://erc.europa.eu/news-events/news/iron-age-massacre-targeted-women-and-children-new-research-reveals)
[12] [https://www.sciencenews.org](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/iron-age-mass-grave-women-children)
[13] [https://howardwilliamsblog.wordpress.com](https://howardwilliamsblog.wordpress.com/2026/02/27/lessons-from-an-early-iron-age-mass-grave-an-archaeodeath-perspective/)
Some things, like Slavs mindlessly butchering other Slavs, never change. . .
“Nope, Putin’s.”
While Serbia is a long-time ally of Russia, I think it’s difficult to blame Putin for this killing.
Of course Zeepers may see things differently...
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