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Photograph courtesy York Archaeological Trust
An ancient English cemetery filled with headless skeletons holds proof that the victims lost their heads a long way from home, archaeologists say.
Unearthed between 2004 and 2005 in the northern city of York (map), the 80 skeletons were found in burial grounds used by the Romans throughout the second and third centuries A.D. Almost all the bodies are males, and more than half of them had been decapitated, although many were buried with their detached heads.York—then called Eboracum—was the Roman Empire's northernmost provincial capital during the time.
In a new study of the ancient bones, Gundula Müldner of the University of Reading in the U.K. says the "headless Romans" likely came from as far away as Eastern Europe, and previous evidence of combat scars suggests that the men led violent lives.
"The headless Romans are very different [physically] than other people from York," Müldner said. "They come from all over the place. Some of them are quite exotic."
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