Subtitles (49)
0:01 Well this is a
human body, obviously.
0:02I spotted that straight away.
0:03 Yes, this is a body
that came from our site
0:06at Winterborne Kingston.
0:09NARRATOR: In 2010,
Paul and his team
0:11were excavating an Iron Age
farmstead about 13 miles
0:15from Maiden Castle
when they discovered
0:17a body with some distinctive
and gruesome marks.
0:22 When it was looked
at very closely,
0:25we realized that there was
a cut mark on the neck.
0:31If we look at the back, here,
we can see-- just there--
0:34a very tiny nick, which
suggests that somebody
0:38has slashed down with a blade,
gone to the back of the neck,
0:44 So you're suggesting
that as a cause of death?
0:47 It's likely that,
unfortunately,
0:54was the victim of basically
either sacrifice or murder.
1:00This particular body
was placed in a pit
1:03in a very, very unusual way.
1:06It was laid on top of a
series of animal bones,
1:10and they put the bones
out and they laid them
1:12out in what was basically a sort
of rough anatomical position
1:17They put a skull at one
head, and then hip bones,
1:19and long bones in between it--
1:22and a mix of cow and
horse, and a bit of dog--
1:23 So, what, you mixed up several
jigsaws and put them together?
1:29NARRATOR: And there's more--
1:31Paul found three other very
similar pits at the farmstead.
1:35They also contained
human remains.
1:38Taken together,
they suggest there
1:41was a pattern to these deaths.
1:44 When we started to
date these burials,
1:46we found there was
about every 20 years--
1:48so every generation--
1:51 One of these special
events happens with the pits.
1:54It could be some
sort of cyclic event
1:57that had to happen
every so often to renew
2:01their relationship with
the gods or with nature,
2:03or because maybe things had
gone down-- bad harvests--
2:08and they just felt that there
was something that they had
2:11to do to increase fertility.
2:13 Gosh, that must have been a
particularly bad harvest, when
2:15you've got to put a human in.
