OXFORD, ENGLAND—The Guardian reports that researchers led by Rick Schulting of the University of Oxford have analyzed a collection of human bones discovered in a pit at the site of Charterhouse Warren in southwestern England some 50 years ago. The study determined that the bones represent at least 37 men, women, and children, who were killed between 2200 and 2000 B.C. Half of these bones belonged to children, and many of the individuals had suffered skull fractures. After death, limbs had been removed and marrow was extracted from the bones. Marks made by human molars were found on hand and feet bones. The attackers may have wiped out an entire settlement and eaten their victims, the researchers suggest, as a way to warn the wider community. “For the early Bronze Age in Britain, we have very little evidence for violence,” Schulting said. “Our understanding of the period is mostly focused on trade and exchange: how people made pottery, how they farmed, how they buried their dead. There have been no real discussions of warfare or large-scale violence in that period, purely through lack of evidence,” he explained. Yet the violence seen at Charterhouse Warren may have been perpetrated in retaliation for another mass killing, or it may have provoked acts of revenge, he concluded. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Antiquity. To read about a Bronze Age settlement in eastern England destroyed by fire some 3,000 years ago, go to "Fire in the Fens."
