Attackers cannibalized victims of an Early Bronze Age community to dehumanize them

Thousands of ancient butchered human bones found in a deep shaft in southwest England have pointed archaeologists to a grim chapter of British prehistory.

Thousands of ancient butchered human bones found in a deep shaft in southwest England have pointed archaeologists to a grim chapter of British prehistory that occurred during the Early Bronze Age.

Analysis of the more than 3,000 bones has suggested that unidentified assailants violently killed at least 37 men, women and children before butchering and cannibalizing their victims between 2210 and 2010 BC at a site called Charterhouse Warren, which is located in Somerset. Then, the attackers tossed the remnants of the bodies down a 49.2-foot (15-meter) natural shaft linked to a cave system.

The grisly find represents the largest example of interpersonal violence from this period in Britain, according to the authors of a study describing the findings, which published Sunday in the journal Antiquity.

The bones are rare, direct evidence that point to a cycle of violence at a time during the Early Bronze Age that experts had once considered to be largely peaceful in Britain. Most of the hundreds of human skeletons recovered from 2500 to 1500 BC in the country typically have not contained evidence of brutality, the study authors said.

“We actually find more evidence for injuries to skeletons dating to the Neolithic period (10,000 BC to 2,200 BC) in Britain than the Early Bronze Age, so Charterhouse Warren stands out as something very unusual,” said lead study author Rick Schulting, professor of scientific and prehistoric archaeology at the University of Oxford, in a statement.

“It paints a considerably darker picture of the period than many would have expected.”

The researchers believe the intent behind the extreme treatment of the victims’ remains was intended to dehumanize them as revenge after some perceived grievous offense. But trying to determine the exact motive from unknown attackers during a time before written documents existed in the region is proving difficult.