Cave Bones in Britain Point to a 4,000-Year-Old Massacre So Brutal It May Have Included Cannibalism

It's Britain's bloodiest prehistoric massacre.

by Tibi Puiu
February 23, 2025
Reading Time: 7 mins read
Edited and reviewed by Zoe Gordon

In the 1970s, a group of cavers exploring the Mendip Hills in Somerset stumbled upon a dark secret buried for millennia. Deep inside a 50-foot shaft lay a disordered pile of human and animal bones. The discovery faded into obscurity for decades, reduced to a footnote about an odd cave system. But a recent revisiting of these bones has unearthed a far more harrowing story: a brutal massacre that unfolded over 4,000 years ago.

Scientists now believe they have identified the largest known case of prehistoric violence in Early Bronze Age Britain. The remains of at least 37 men, women, and children tell a chilling tale of a community wiped out in a single, horrific event. But that’s not all. The most harrowing fact that came out of this investigation was that the victims weren’t only murdered; they may have been cannibalized.

An Unexpected Brutality

Previously, archaeologists had found just a few skeletons with injuries dating between 2500 BCE and 1500 BCE, which has led many to believe that Bronze Age Britain was largely peaceful. These new findings suggest the opposite.

The study, led by Professor Rick Schulting from the University of Oxford, undoubtedly concluded that the victims of the Charterhouse Warren site met gruesome fates. Their skulls were crushed by blunt instruments. Limbs were systematically severed. Bones were scraped clean of flesh and cracked open.

. . .

“This level of almost erasing the person, literally chopping them into pieces, seems like something you would only do if fueled by anger, fear, and resentment,” Schulting told the BBC. It may have been an act of revenge, a ritualized attempt to dehumanize the victims and send a message to their kin. Scrape marks and blunt force trauma hint at a desire to desecrate the bodies, a brutal form of psychological warfare.

More:
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/britain-chaterhouse-massacre-432/

Maybe it was simple "locker room" horse play . . .