Archaeologists do it in holes: Tales from the stratigraphy

[garbon]

Well guess what?

I tried to find a history of ownership before I posted...and failed. 

I stumbled upon its name and then found that CNN article.

[jimmy olsen]

https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c23vnxx3nz8o

Pretty much only posted to say...



I am sympathetic to an idea that such/certain relics can reach a point of historical importance where it would justified that they be seized under eminent domain.

I'm surprised that's the earliest one known.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Ritual cannibalism in bronze age Somerset :

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/dec/16/something-horrible-somerset-pit-reveals-bronze-age-cannibalism

....they still vote Tpry even to this day 

[Legbiter]

Bronze Age British Ate Their Enemies According to Gruesome Discovery

A study of early Bronze Age bones in Britain has revealed a shockingly violent and barbaric end for dozens of unfortunate individuals.

The remains, excavated from the Charterhouse Warren site in southwest England, show evidence of close quarters blunt force trauma, dismemberment, and cannibalism, all of which took place before the bodies were thrown down a 15-meter (49-foot) shaft.

It's evidence of "a level and scale of violence that is unprecedented in British prehistory," according to the international team of researchers behind the study – and raises plenty of questions about what actually went on here.

It seems to roughly line up with the time of the Bell Beaker population replacement.



A lot of bashed skulls and chewed bones. Man it's been rough for those anthropologists who built careers out of imagining the ancestral past as basically hobbits who never went anywhere and peacefully transferred pottery styles via slow diffusion.

[Legbiter]

Ritual cannibalism in bronze age Somerset :

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/dec/16/something-horrible-somerset-pit-reveals-bronze-age-cannibalism

....they still vote Tpry even to this day 

The past is a serial killer's basement.

Kinda reminds me of the Herxheim death pit but still a lot smaller in scale.

The archaeological site of Herxheim, located in the municipality of Herxheim in southwest Germany, was a ritual center and a mass grave formed by people of the Linear Pottery culture (LBK) culture in Neolithic Europe. The site is often compared to that of the Talheim Death Pit and Schletz-Asparn, but is quite different in nature. The site dates from between 5300 and 4950 BC. The site contained the scattered remains of more than 1000 individuals from different, in some cases faraway regions. Whether they were war captives or human sacrifices is unclear, but the evidence indicates that they were roasted and consumed.

Herxheim death pit.

[Richard Hakluyt]

They are snapshots of course, isolated in a long period of time. It is possible that thee sorts of incidents were very rare. On the other hand, how many people have we got checking ancient bones for evidence of cannibalism? Maybe we would discover it is commonplace if we look harder.

[Sheilbh]

Ritual cannibalism in bronze age Somerset :

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/dec/16/something-horrible-somerset-pit-reveals-bronze-age-cannibalism

....they still vote Tpry even to this day 

I checked - Lib Dems (Tessa Munt's seat). Of course

I could be wrong but I think there's been a few discoveries in ancient sites recently that basically look like all the men and boys of a community were massacred and possibly cannibalised in some locations. Again not an expert but a few sites in different places that seem like artifacts of something incredibly brutal.

[The Minsky Moment]

Ritual cannibalism in bronze age Somerset :

I checked - Lib Dems

Where they are eaters, there must be those who eaten.

[jimmy olsen]

Ritual cannibalism in bronze age Somerset :

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/dec/16/something-horrible-somerset-pit-reveals-bronze-age-cannibalism

....they still vote Tpry even to this day 

Nothing on this scale of violence has previously been found in early bronze age Britain or any other time in British prehistory, according to Rick Schulting, the lead author and a professor of scientific and prehistoric archaeology at the University of Oxford. This was likely to make the Charterhouse Warren massacre an exceptional event, even in its time, he told the Guardian.

"For the early bronze age in Britain, we have very little evidence for violence. Our understanding of the period is mostly focused on trade and exchange: how people made pottery, how they farmed, how they buried their dead," he said. "There have been no real discussions of warfare or large-scale violence in that period, purely through lack of evidence."

There's tons of evidence for mass violence in bronze age Europe, the Near East and Asia.

I suspect there was just as much in Britain, even if the vagaries of the archaeological record haven't left much proof.

[crazy canuck]

One of the things that is different is hill forts didn't start proliferating in England until the Iron Age, which has led to an inference that the Bronze Age was relatively more peaceful.

[mongers]

One of the things that is different is hill forts didn't start proliferating in England until the Iron Age, which has led to an inference that the Bronze Age was relatively more peaceful.

Indeed.