A burial pit from the 9th century CE was discovered by Cambridge University archaeologists and students during a training dig, the university announced in an early February statement. 

The dig took place at Wandlebury Country Park on the outskirts of Cambridge, and was led by Dr. Oscar Aldred from the Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU).

The pit is believed to have been from a time of conflict “between the Saxon-run kingdom of Mercia and the kingdom of East Anglia, which was conquered by the Vikings in around 870 [CE],” the statement explained.

Archaeologists surmised that the pit contained the remains of at least 10 people, but only four complete skeletons “in positions suggesting they were tied up.”

In addition, the remains also included a decapitation, and “a man well over six foot in stature – extremely tall for the time – with a trepanned head.”

Trepanning is an ancient surgical procedure, where medical practitioners would drill a hole through a living human’s skull, to treat intracranial diseases or release pressure.

Curator of the Duckworth Collections at Cambridge University Dr. Trish Biers theorized that the man’s height could have been due to a tumor affecting his “pituitary gland and caused an excess of growth hormones.” 

Biers further noted that if that were the case, the individual would have been plagued with headaches “that the trepanning may have been an attempt to alleviate.”

The remaining bones included “a cluster of skulls without clear accompanying bodies and a ‘stack of legs,’ which researchers will attempt to “refit” in order to confirm the number of remains. 

Archaeologists ruled the remains as belonging to young men between the ages of 17-24, who were thrown into the pit “without care,” but noted that there isn’t enough evidence to suggest that the remains were victims of battle.

“Those buried could have been recipients of corporal punishment, and that may be connected to Wandlebury as a sacred or well-known meeting place,” Aldred explained, noting that the assorted body parts may have been “displayed as trophies” before being gathered up into the pit.

“We don’t see much evidence for the deliberate chopping up of some of these body parts, so they may have been in a state of decomposition and literally falling apart when they went into the pit.”

“I would never have expected to find something like this on a student training dig. It was a shocking contrast to the peaceful site of Wandlebury,” Grace Grandfield, a Cambridge undergraduate who took part in the dig, said.

“Several of the individuals we uncovered were a similar age to me, and it was a sobering experience to identify ever more disarticulated bones and realize the extent of the suffering that had taken place.”

“I had never encountered human remains on a dig, and I was struck by how close yet distant these people felt,” third-year archaeology undergraduate Olivia Courtney echoed. “We were separated by only a few years in age, but over a thousand years in time.”