About 40 decapitated skeletons were unearthed by a group of archaeologists in southern England in a railway zone. According to researchers, the remains belong to “criminals” from the Roman period.
The skeletons were found when archaeologists from England’s High Speed 2 (HS2) program discovered a plot of land in Buckinghamshire that was used as a Roman cemetery, considered the largest of its time.
A team of 50 archaeologists had been working at the site for over a year, where they also found parts of a Roman city in the village of Fleet Marston, alongside more than 1,200 coins, game dice, bells, spoons, pins and brooches.
The settlement was likely used as a stopping point for soldiers and pedestrians traveling through Fleet Marston on their way to the Roman city of Alchester.
According to a statement from those responsible, the cemetery contained about 425 bodies buried in total.
The number of burials, as well as that of the village itself, suggest that a large number of people arrived in the city between the middle and end of the Roman period – probably as a result of inflated agricultural production.
One explanation for the use of decapitation as a funerary practice could be that the skeletons were of “criminals or a type of pariah”, although this procedure was standard during the Roman period, the statement added.
The cemetery mainly housed burials as the practice was common at the time, however, there were also cremated bodies.
“The excavation is significant both in allowing a clear characterization of this Roman city, but also as a study of many of its inhabitants,” said Richard Brown, senior project manager at COPA JV, a consortium of archaeologists working on behalf of the project.
“Together with several new Roman settlement sites discovered during the construction of HS2, it enhances and fills in the map of Roman Buckinghamshire,” added Brown.
Archaeologists from the HS2 excavation program have uncovered valuable information in Buckinghamshire in recent months, including a set of rare Roman statues and a wooden figure that could be 2,000 years old.
Source: CNN Brasil
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