ineptshieldmaid:

This is a report on a three-year dig, so not new news to archaeology but it is new news to me. Cool, slightly creepy news.

Highlights:
– archaeological dig of a 5th c hill fort (cool)
– instead of layers of occupation and gradual abandonment the place was suddenly abandoned after a massacre
– or rather DURING. No one buried the dead. The villagers are still lying where they died, in their houses or while trying to flee
– the place doesn’t seem to have been looted. Animals starved in their pens. Valuable items are still with the bodies
– except for weapons: no weapons anywhere in the site.

So far so cool/creepy.

Bonus: no written record of anything like this
Super bonus: over 1500 years later the locals still avoid the site and warned archaeologists not to go near it, because it’s a bad and dangerous place

Just. What _happened_ here? What did they do, that no one came to bury them (from which I assume no one undertook to avenge them, which would be a Big Deal)?

Swedish archaeologists uncover brutal 5th century massacre | Science | The Guardian