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(Image credit: © Bournemouth University )
Archaeologists in England have actually found the 2,000-year-old skeleton of a teen lying face down in a pit– an uncommon burial position that might be an idea in a murder secret.
Scientists from Bournemouth University were excavating a Celtic website in Dorset, a county in southwest England, previously this year when they came across the unusual burial. The discovery took place throughout the recording of “Sandi Toksvig’s Hidden Wonders,” a brand-new television series hosted by broadcaster and comic Sandi Toksvig, according to a declaration from Bournemouth University.
The teen had no serious products and was discovered face down at the bottom of a deserted pit. Integrated with the proof that her hands had actually been bound, those ideas hint that she had actually been compromised by the Durotriges people, a Celtic group that resided in Britain throughout the Iron Age before the Romans got into, Russell stated.
And she’s not the just most likely murder victim at the website.
“The two other face-down bodies in pits we’ve recovered in the project were a teenage girl found in 2024,” Russell stated, “and one from 2010 of a young adult female” whose neck had actually been slashed.
In 2024, archaeologists discovered another face-down female burial at the website. (Image credit: © Bournemouth University)These uncommon burials have actually been recuperated as part of Bournemouth University’s Durotriges Projectwhich concentrates on pre-Roman settlements in southern Britain. The cemetery appears to date to approximately the early to mid-first century B.C., about a century before the Romans effectively attacked southern England.
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In a research study released previously this year, scientists with the task utilized DNA analysis to reveal that Celtic groups such as the Durotriges were most likely arranged along maternal lineswhich matched what Roman authors stated about the Celts. It appears that guys took a trip to their spouses’ towns to wed, rather of the other method around.
Offered the Celts’ focus on maternal relationshipsit’s unexpected that all 3 uncommon burials might represent compromised females and ladies.
Russell stated these people might have been at the lower end of the social scale and thought about more “disposable,” specifically if they were not from the location or were not associated with the judgment households.
The compromised female found in 2010 has actually currently been examined, the compromised teen discovered in 2024 and the teen discovered this year have actually not been totally studied. Russell and his group strategy to examine both skeletons for possible indications of injury and illness, in addition to identify what the teens consumed and where they originated from.
The discovery of numerous female sacrifices recommends the practice was a lot more typical than formerly believed, Russell stated, however “we are at a loss to know what socio-politico-environmental factors triggered the practice.”
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Kristina Killgrove is a personnel author at Live Science with a concentrate on archaeology and paleoanthropology news. Her short articles have actually likewise appeared in places such as Forbes, Smithsonian, and Mental Floss. Kristina holds a Ph.D. in biological sociology and an M.A. in classical archaeology from the University of North Carolina, along with a B.A. in Latin from the University of Virginia, and she was previously a university teacher and scientist. She has actually gotten awards from the Society for American Archaeology and the American Anthropological Association for her science composing.
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