Britain’s greatest ancient massacre may have involved cannibalism

A 4,000-year-old murder mystery began with a massacre in what is now southwest England. Then came dismemberment, possibly accompanied by cannibalism.

At least 37 men, women and children suffered this violent fate, ending up thrown into a 15-metre-deep natural shaft by unknown assailants, say archaeologist Rick Schulting of the University of Oxford and his colleagues. The perpetrators also threw butchered parts of cattle and other domestic and wild animals into the shaft, researchers report Dec. 16 in Antiquity.

The motives for the horrific early Bronze Age event remain unclear. There is no weapon or any other possible clue to the identity of the attackers.

In Britain, the Early Bronze Age lasted from 2200 BC to 1500 BC “There was no [previous] indicative of violence on this scale in Britain at the time, both in terms of the number of victims and how they were treated after death,” says Schulting.

Researchers have discovered several other ancient sites of human slaughter in continental Europe, ranging in age from about 1,500 years after the Bronze Age to approximately 7,000 years before the Bronze Age.SN: 10/6/20; SN: 12/3/09).

Schulting’s team analyzed more than 3,000 human bones and bone fragments excavated in the 1970s and 1980s at a British site called Charterhouse Warren. Radiocarbon dates show that human and non-human remains were deposited in a single event between 4,200 and 4,000 years ago, scientists say.

Dietary chemicals in the bones suggest that most of the victims grew up near Charterhouse Warren.

Nearly half of the 20 skulls found showed fatal wounds caused by blows from weapons such as wooden clubs. The victims showed no skeletal signs of a struggle, suggesting they may have been taken captive before the attack or killed during a surprise raid.

An escalating cycle of revenge killings between nearby communities may have created enough antagonism to trigger the ancient British massacre, Schulting speculates. Revenge killings have caused high homicide rates in some modern hunter-gatherer societies (SN: 18.7.13).

Signs of possible cannibalism at Charterhouse Warren consist of tool cuts on the leg bones where the flesh was removed, fractures at the ends of long bones associated with marrow removal, and human chewing marks on the legs and hand bones and ribs.

Attackers in the British area partially consumed the victims before depositing their remains with slaughtered cattle, perhaps to dehumanize their enemies, researchers suspect.