DORSET, ENGLAND—According to a BBC News report, researchers from Bournemouth University examined the 2,000-year-old remains of a woman unearthed in 2010 in southwestern England’s site of Winterborne Kingston and determined that she had been stabbed in the neck. Forensic and biological anthropologist Martin Smith said that the woman’s skeleton had been found lying face down in a pit on top of an arrangement of animal bones. He added that analysis of her bones indicates that she was in her late 20s when she died, she had broken ribs, and her spine showed evidence of hard labor, while isotopic analysis of her teeth shows that she grew up more than 20 miles away from the site where she was buried. When taken together, Smith concluded, the evidence suggests that the woman had been ritually killed and deposited in the pit as part of an offering. To read about Iron Age roundhouses uncovered in northwest England, go to "Hail to the Chief."
