Somerset Bronze Age massacre victims likely cannibalised

They believe that at least 37 people died, including men, woman and children. Teenagers and older children made up about half of the victims.

Villages in early Bronze Age Britain were made up of around 50 to 100 people, so the experts think this could have equated to wiping-out almost one entire community.

The Bronze Age in Britain lasted from about 2500–2000 BC until 800BC, and was a time when bronze replaced stone for making tools and weapons. People developed new agricultural methods, creating large and permanent farms.

In the newly-identified attack there was no evidence of a fight back, suggesting the victims were taken by surprise.

Scrape and cut marks on the bones indicate that the attackers systematically dismembered their victims using stone tools and likely consumed them.

“If we saw these marks on animal bones, we’d have no question that they were butchered,” says Prof Schulting.

The scientists do not believe the attackers ate the remains out of hunger because the fragments were found alongside animal bones, indicating there was sufficient food.

The extensive dismembering of the bodies is the first documented case for this era.