The site showed that at least 37 people were attacked, dismembered and likely eaten (Image: Schulting et al. 2024, Antiquity)
Researchers have made an of a 4000-year-old site in England which contains remains of at least 37 people who were likely cut up and eaten.
The Bronze Age site is one of the largest which shows violence between humans at what was known as a largely peaceful time.
Bones were found in the 1970s by cavers and experts believe they were thrown into a 15m shaft by prehistoric attackers, .
have analysed the reasons for the massacre and Professor Rick Schulting at Oxford university said it’s likely the attack was driven by a “desire for revenge”.
He says the victims may have been eaten as a ritual to “dehumanise” them and to send a message by “insulting the remains”.
The Bronze Age was largely a peaceful time, says Professor Schulting (Image: Schulting et al. 2024, Antiquity)
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The bone fragments were found at Charterhouse Warren in the Mendip Hills, Somerset.
Villages in early Bronze Age Britain were made up of around 50 to 100 people, so experts think this could have equated to wiping-out almost one entire community.
There was no evidence that the victims fought back which suggests they were taken by surprise.
have said the scrapes and marks on the bones indicate the attackers systematically dismembered victims using tools and likely consumed them.
Professor Schulting said: “If we saw these marks on animal bones, we’d have no question that they were butchered.”
Scientists do not believe the attackers ate the remains out of hunger because the fragments were found alongside animal bones, indicating there was sufficient food.
The bones were originally found by cavers in the 1970s (Image: Schulting et al. 2024, Antiquity)
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Professor Schulting added: “This was something exceptional. This level of almost erasing the person, literally chopping them into pieces, seems like something you would only do if fuelled by anger, fear and resentment.”
He also suggested that a community of people came together to carry out the attack on another community.
Before this , only about 10 victims of violent attacks had been found from the period, Professor Schulting says.
The scientists said they do not believe this would have been a one-off attack because “there would have been repercussions”.
The Bronze Age in Britain lasted from 2500–2000 BC until 800BC and the findings of this massacre site were published in the academic journal .
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