Scientists Shocked by Gruesome 2,800-Year-Old Mass Grave of Women and Children Found Bludgeoned to Death

EXPERTS have shed new light on a mysterious mass grave dating back 2,800 years filled with murdered women and children.

Some 77 people were violently killed by bludgeoning and stabbing.

Most mass graves tend to be of people from the same group or family – but not hereCredit: Museum of Vojvodina Most of the victims were children – including one babyCredit: Linda Fibiger / Miren Iraeta-Orbegozo

The grim site is known as the Gomolava burials, located in Northern .

It’s one of the largest prehistoric single-event mass graves excavated in .

Scientists have long wondered what prompted this unusual mass killing event during the Iron Age.

They still don’t know exactly why such a brutal attack was carried out.

But they have shed some surprising new details about the victims – creating more questions than answers.

You might assume that the killings were carried out by rival groups, as has been seen countless times before throughout history.

But genetic analysis carried out on the majority of the remains reveals very few of the victims were related to each other.

In fact, their bones suggest they grew up in different settlements entirely.

Another big difference is clues that some care was taken to prepare the site.

Experts found evidence of investment of time and resources, with victims buried along with their personal items, including jewellery produced from metal stocks from this area.

“The brutal killings and subsequent commemorating of the event can both be read as a powerful bid to balance power relations and assert dominance over land and resources,” said Dr Linda from the University of .

“The study sheds new light on targeted gender and age selective killings as a way of enacting mass violence and assertion of power in prehistoric Europe.”

The team used techniques including analysis, the study of tooth collagen and enamel, as well as looking at trauma and injuries to bones.

They found that the dead were from various places and had very different diets, which means the people were not related and had not lived together long-term in a single location.

Most of the victims were aged between one and 12-years-old, while 11 were adolescents and two dozen were adults – 87 per cent of which were female.

There was also one baby boy.

It’s believed that the women and children killed were most likely targeted as part of a systemic and large-scale conflict that many settlements got caught up in.

“By drawing together a suite of cutting-edge analyses not available when this grave was excavated, we are now able to tell the story not simply of their violent deaths, but also the circumstances leading up to that event,” explained Dr Barry Molloy from University College .

“This shines new light on the nature of conflict and its aftermath at this time, particularly as their burial was staged on the settlement mound at Gomolava, transforming it into a lasting monument to these people and witnessed by their community.”

The study – carried out by the University of Edinburgh, University College Dublin, the University of and Museum of Vojvodina – was published in the Nature Human Behaviour journal.