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July 19, 2009, 07:56 AM
#1
[Discov] Dorset Ridgeway’s killing field: were victims Vikings or local heroes?
Decapitated skulls and body parts being unearthed at the top of Ridgeway Hill
It was a scene familiar from the killing fields of Iraq or the Balkans, but unheard of in rural Dorset. As the earth-moving machine peeled back a thin layer of topsoil, it exposed a tangled mass of human bones.
Fifty-one young men had been decapitated with swords or axes before their bodies were tossed into a pit. The heads were neatly stacked to one side.
Radio-carbon dating suggests that they were killed between 890 and 1034, when the South of England was pillaged by Viking raiders from Scandinavia. A month after the discovery archaeologists are beginning to piece the story together.
The pit was discovered during road improvements between Dorchester and Weymouth, venue for sailing events in the 2012 Olympics. A team of archaeologists had been following builders widening the A354 where it crosses the Ridgeway, a prehistoric track along the crest of the limestone hills of south Dorset.
What they found shook even experienced archaeologists used to dealing with the remains of the long dead. David Score, of Oxford Archaeology, the project manager, said: “When you are there surrounded by bones with a pile of skulls grimacing back at you, you can’t help but imagine how they met their end. It would have been a scene of absolute horror.”
Marks on the skulls, jaws and vertebrae showed where the heads had been hacked off, sometimes taking many blows.
Nothing else has been found in the grave so far. Mr Score said: “You might expect them to have been stripped of weapons and jewellery before execution, but the fact we haven’t found so much as a bone toggle suggests they were naked when they were executed.”
The identity of the skeletons may be revealed by their teeth. Isotopes in the enamel formed while the men were growing up will reveal whether their origins were in Scandinavia, Wessex — Alfred’s kingdom — or northern England, where large numbers of Danes had settled.
The Anglo Saxon Chronicle records Viking raiders landing at Portland, not far from Weymouth. Could a raiding party have been captured and put to the sword? The bones will reveal whether the dead men had the massively developed upper bodies of Viking oarsmen; their teeth, where they grew up; and their DNA, whether they are related to people still living in the area.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6718631.ece
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