Kristina Killgrove is a staff writer at Live Science with a focus on archaeology and paleoanthropology news. Her articles have also appeared in venues such as Forbes, Smithsonian, and Mental Floss. Killgrove holds postgraduate degrees in anthropology and classical archaeology and was formerly a university professor and researcher.
More than 4,000 years ago, nearly 40 people died extremely violent deaths in what is now England, with a modern analysis of their bones revealing scalping, tongue removal, decapitation, defleshing, evisceration and cannibalism.
Looking closely at the fragmented bones, the research team determined that at least 30% of the skulls had been fractured around the time of death, implying that many — or possibly all — of the people suffered violent deaths. What happened after death was even more gruesome. By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over."The presence of at least 37 individuals suggests the massacre of a substantial segment of a community," the researchers wrote."In this case, the violence may have continued postmortem," and it is likely that"the aim was to not only eradicate another group, but to thoroughly 'other' them in the process.
"Violence like this often has a social function," Osterholtz said, because"violent acts, when performed in front of an audience, are important for group identity formation and the negotiation of social relationships." But what the violence tells us about group identity can be gleaned only from archaeological evidence.
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