A 4,000-year-old massacre in south-western England was linked to possible acts of cannibalism, new research has revealed. The remains of at least 37 individuals – men, women and children – were found in a 50-foot-deep shaft at Charterhouse Warren Farm, revealing severed thighs, severed skulls and dismembered skulls. Researchers suggest that the victims were murdered and possibly eaten at a ceremonial feast, with some bones bearing human teeth marks.
The findings, published in the journal Antiquity, show that the victims were murdered in a single, mass killing between 2210 and 2010 BC. Discovered in 1970 at Charterhouse Warren Farm, near Bristol, the site was initially dismissed as a typical Bronze Age burial. However, the new study suggests that the remains belonged to victims who were likely captives or caught in a surprise attack. No evidence of weapons or defensive injuries was found.
About half of the skulls recovered had sustained fatal injuries from being struck with wooden sticks. Tool marks on leg bones suggest that flesh was stripped, and fractures on long bones point to marrow extraction – practices associated with cannibalism. The perpetrators also threw human bones as well as the remains of butchered animals into the shaft, possibly as part of a ritual.
“It has taken us all by surprise. This was completely unexpected, completely unusual for that period and for almost all of British prehistory,” said lead author Rick Schulting, professor of archeology at the University of Oxford.
The scale of the violence and its motivations remain unclear. Researchers believe that a cycle of escalating revenge killings between nearby communities may have led to the massacre. Rick Schulting suggests that the killings may have been a warning or a form of dehumanization of the victims. He said, “There is no (prior) indication of violence on this scale in the UK at that time, both in relation to the number of victims and the way they were treated after death.”
In contrast to the relatively peaceful archaeological record of the British Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, where violent conflict was rare, Charterhouse Warren presents a unique case of mass violence and systematic postmortem processing. The disarticulated remains stand in contrast to typical burial practices of the period, where expressed skeletons or cremation dominated. Charterhouse Warren joins a handful of European prehistoric sites that document extreme violence and body processing.
