Mass Iron Age grave found in Northern England

[Brennus]

Here is the link from the BBC in case anyone is interested:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13082240

[moonburn]

very interesting but the fact that it´s just women and children makes us assume they sallied out and got soundly beaten ? leaving only women and children to be butchered inside the city

so if this archeological diggings develops fast can we have new units and more alliances in game if we play the pritanoi ?

what kind of buildings where found there can we have some nice upgrades on the pritainoi tech tree ? where they dead kelts or can we assume that there was another pre-keltik native population in britain during this time? where they assimilated or anihalated (considering the deads are women and children)

was it a violent death or was the setlement ravaged by disease while the men where away sheparding/raiding and then the men and the few survivors burried everyone and abandoned the site because it was cursed ?

why where they building a fortress ? if no man was found only 1 single teenager does it mean the women where building it ? where any weapons found ? (if yes and the absence of men makes us believe they where a matriarchal warrior society a kind of british amazons)

nice start but the article gives very litle information

[fomalhaut]

i think them being a matriarchal warrior society is quite a stretch when the odds of the men being out to war, or had sallied forth and lost, being much more likely. the teenage boy was probably just at the crux of being fighting age, but not quite. or maybe he had some sort of sickness, falling sickness or even blindness.

the fortress was stormed and the inhabitants killed? but why not burned like the dead warriors probably were?

[moonburn]

the kind of brutality present with so many women and children dead makes it look like it was a blood feud that went a bit over the edge also the article didn´t explicitly said the finds where keltik so unleass more information is available we´re free to persuit any lone of investigation we see fit until proofs prove us wrong

also if the assailers killed all women and children but no men body was found it looks very strange

maybe the welsh needed slaves to build stonehenge (it falls roughly on the 3rd part of stonehenge evolution but not sure would have to check my old books) ? i know of a few setlements in the new mexico where similar findings where discovered but those findings where directly related to a 50 year drought that made the strong act by starting "building" to apease the gods so they butchered women and children so they didn´t had to feed them and saved/enslaved the men for them to build

but if they where keltik (and i don´t know of any other culture in the british isles who could build fortifications besides the kelts ) it seems strange that a warrior culture would not stand and fight while their women where being raped and their children murdered so slave hunting altough a good guess seems wierd to me

in the article it said the fortress was not finished so we know it was abandoned and if the attackers had wiped out the remaints then there would be no reason to burn it they could keep it and in case of emergency they could finish it and use it

everytime fortifications of any type appears it means there´s conflict either by populational booms resources scarcing or invasions/migrations

the castro culture of the iberian peninsula is one such example

if we had a timetable of how long it would take for that fortification to be finished and perhaps how many people it was planed for we might be able to know how many people there where working on it and how long they where working for it wich could/might provide an insight on the type of threat they where expecting (like if the fortress was 3 months on the making already we know it was a state of war if it was 2 days into the making process we know the people where caught by surprise but also that they where either warned or they had some sort of sofisticated comunication system )

answers and questions

[fomalhaut]

maybe they were victims of a plague, and the fortress was made uninhabited completely because of it? who knows. you seem to have a keen knowledge on the subject though

[vartan]

Maybe we could use more data.

[antisocialmunky]

They don't really describe anything specific about the skeletons themselves that lead people to believe one way or another. Maybe they had weapon damage on them or something else unpublished that lead the team to conclude that way.

[moonburn]

we only have skeletons of infants and females an unfinished fortification with an inner fortification and an outer fortification (catle keeps ? ) and the absence of men skelletons from then on all we can say are assumptions

i like assumptions allows me to practice my deduction skills and use some imagination

it could be the case that the people discovered that there was no proper water suply where they where building and abandoned it and turned it into a graveyard meaning that the men would be "stored" in another part of the complex but for that we would require to have a proper dating of the time the people died if it´s fairly spaced then it lends credability to the theory

such massive amount of violence displayed is uncommon even in times of greater conflict slaves would be taken alongside the catle unleass it was a punitive expedition (kind of wagon train attack while the batle is going elsewhere ) where the attackers would have lured out the warriors and exterminated them (women and children) and then retreated quickly into their own fortress knowing the men would fallow them and they would have the upper hand being on the high ground and in a defensive position

it would make sence if the the one´s making the butchering had lost already quite a few batles and where weaker then those building the fortress and knew that once the fortress was finished the builders where free to hunt them down knowing their women and children were protected

maybe it would be worth to hit the library and search for folklore tales or myths something that bloody would have let a history behinde either a history to scare children (like the yacatan myths of a sorcerer jumping from cloud to cloud to land in a fortress and kill everyone inside wich was based on a true story that a few archeologists discovered while digging in a pre colombian fortress ) or a heroic history like the conquest of troy

it also tends to stay disguised as something else in myth like the portuguese baker woman of aljubarrota wich was created because the men didn´t want to admit they had killed over 2.000 spanish knights held captives and unharmed after they had honourably surrendered believing the promisses made they would be released once the batle was over and their ransom paid instead they had their throats sliced because the portuguese where afraid that if they lost the batle those men would exact revenge and their leaders didn´t want to dispend resources protecting the camp with so many well trained prisioners around while being at a disadvantage of 3 to 1 so the shame of that act was passed on to a mythical creature and later on she was heroyzed during the restauration war both to scare the spanish and lift the moral of soldiers who where outgunned and in inferior numbers saying that a woman had killed 7 spanish

just a few examples on how humans interpret and handle such extrem situations

[bobbin]

Seriously, people are going a bit wild with the speculation on this thread, some bodies were found in a ditch, none of them we adult males. This doesn't mean there was some Amazon-like society of female warriors or that they represent some pre-celtic peoples.

If people really want to do such speculations I suggest reading the archeological reports for the site first.

[moonburn]

come on bobbin you gotta admit it´s good fun detective work :\

[Populus Romanus]

I am disturbed that people can talk about a mass grave filled to the brim with the dead bodies of women and children without displaying the least sign of emotion. It just goes to show you that archaeologists are the most dangerous people in the world: they feel nothing.

[fomalhaut]

well, there are some laws of media that deal with proximity, time and other factors. this mass grave goes beyond every factor that would usually envoke emotions from individuals or collectively, its just the way it is

[bobbin]

I am disturbed that people can talk about a mass grave filled to the brim with the dead bodies of women and children without displaying the least sign of emotion. It just goes to show you that archaeologists are the most dangerous people in the world: they feel nothing.

Seriously? It's part of their job to be as emotionless as possible in their work, this is true for anyone who works in a scientific discipline. Otherwise you get biased results, which lead to biased conclusions which lead to entire theories or practices that are at best wrong and a worst dangerous.
And like fomalhaut said the sheer age of the skeletons, and the fact they are skeletons, lessens any potential for emotional response, you don't see people tearing up when they see them in museums.

Even ignoring the above do you not think it is a little bit insulting to label an entire profession as emotionless and "the most dangerous people in the world" based on your opinion of a professional report?
You realise that people like doctors and police officers write about similar things in just the same way, would you say they are "the most dangerous people in the world" too?

[vartan]

The hyperbole is clearly forgivable as it was (possibly) meant as a half-serious reminder that the humans whose bones were found were also somebody's sister, mother, daughter, husband, brother, and what else have you, but I doubt as an actually attack on the academic field. Clearly the field benefits from finds like these.

[Maeran]

It's definitely nothing to do with Stonehenge (the beginning of the iron age in Britain is a thousand years after the last phase of construction at Stonehenge). Nor was there a significant change of population with the introduction of 'Celtic' culture.

I haven't read it in depth, but I did scan the reports for possible explanations of the war grave interpretation. This is explicitly mentioned in the report, and is based on the 'awkward' positions of the bodies, just under and mixed with a layer of rubble. One skeleton (actually a few scraps of surviving bone) was a baby that was either very young indeed or unborn. On its own, 2 meters from a young adult, (probably female, but badly fragmented). I suppose they could be mother and new-born child, but not really a construction worker.

It is possible that this was an act of violence,but I doubt the slavery angle. If this was the result of winnowing out those who wouldn't make good slaves, why are there no elderly men and why are apparently healthy adult women in the grave? Women can do physical labour as more recent episodes in the history of slavery show.

Not all the men would have been fit to fight, and not all would have been captured. If the hillfort truly was over-run, I think the male bodies were simply segregated somewhere else.

The bodies do show a history of injury, but largely healed and nothing like a blow to the head is evident (admittedly, burying the bodies under rubble might have obscured this point).

One of the adults shows evidence of an unusual diet (tooth decay indicative of a sugary diet- common enough these days but not then) and a general absence of indications of a hard life. Privileged or sacred I wonder?

[moonburn]

you still forgot that the fortification wasn´t finished so a possible sneak attack to prevent it´s finish would explain the situation and ofc shows that the political life of pre-roman britain was far more complicated then people give credit for

as for stonehenge it had 3 distinct phases of construction that span over 1300 years and it ended mid bronze age (once again i´m saying stuff from memory so i can´t be 100% accurate)

during this time britain was extremly high productive in cereals (or as cesar stated in a period of draught those damm brittons where still able to outproduce gaul in terms of food and have a surplus)

so if we take the overproduction of food and the increase in society for more prestige as a result of a complexization of society due to population grow and encroachement on lands beteween clans/tribes this could be a political sign of strenght

[bobbin]

as for stonehenge it had 3 distinct phases of construction that span over 1300 years and it ended mid bronze age (once again i´m saying stuff from memory so i can´t be 100% accurate)

The mid Bronze age in Britain was a lot lot earlier than the construction date of this fort (440-390BC).

It is possible that this was an act of violence,but I doubt the slavery angle. If this was the result of winnowing out those who wouldn't make good slaves, why are there no elderly men and why are apparently healthy adult women in the grave? Women can do physical labour as more recent episodes in the history of slavery show.

Violence is highly likely, the report mentions that quite a few of the bodies showed signs of very recent injuries before death.

Not all the men would have been fit to fight, and not all would have been captured. If the hillfort truly was over-run, I think the male bodies were simply segregated somewhere else.

I think this is the most likely explanation that we can make with the current information.

[Jolt]

I am disturbed that people can talk about a mass grave filled to the brim with the dead bodies of women and children without displaying the least sign of emotion. It just goes to show you that archaeologists are the most dangerous people in the world: they feel nothing.

*epic facepalm*