Dozens of decapitated skeletons have been found in an archaeological dig that uncovered part of a Roman town.
The excavation at Fleet Marston, near Aylesbury, United Kingdom, was carried out while work was underway on the HS2 high-speed railway.
About one in 10 of the 425 bodies uncovered by archaeologists at the area’s large cemetery had been decapitated.
In many examples, severed heads were placed between the legs of the dead or next to their feet.
Archaeologists said it could have been a “rare but normal burial” for the late Roman period, or a sign that these bodies belonged to criminals or outcasts.
The team of 50 also uncovered evidence of dice, bells, jars, coins, brooches and food fermentation.
Richard Brown, the project’s senior manager, said:
The excavation is important both to ensure a clear determination of the characteristics of this Roman city and to carry out work on most of its inhabitants.
Brown said the excavation contributed to “uncovering buckinghamshire’s population map from the Roman period.”
The findings led archaeologists to believe fleet marston was a trading area where religion, gambling and drinking were part of everyday life.
More than 1,200 coins, as well as the remains of household items such as spoons, needles and brooches, were discovered.
The cemetery became the largest of its kind in Buckinghamshire.
Unlike funerals exhumed from Christian lands such as St James’s Gardens in London, HS2 does not need to re-bury bodies found at the excavation site. The bodies are being kept in storage for further examination.
The excavation by Cotswold Archeology and Oxford Archeology (Copa), working on behalf of an HS2 contractor, took more than a year.
Fleet Marston is among more than 100 archaeological sites examined by HS2 on the route of the first leg of the railway between London and Birmingham since 2018.
Helen Wass, head of HS2 Ltd’s cultural heritage division, said:
The HS2 archaeological programme has allowed us to learn more about Britain’s rich history.
The great Roman cemetery at Fleet Marston will allow us to get detailed insights into the inhabitants of Fleet Marston and, more generally, Roman Britain.
All human remains uncovered will be treated with value, care and respect and we will share our discoveries with the community.
However, critics of the controversial £10bn high-speed rail have accused HS2 of misleading propaganda in the name of public relations. According to these critics, the new discoveries were announced when “bulldozers” were passed over historical sites.
Joe Rukin, of the Stop HS2 campaign team, told The Independent after a series of digs last year:
The emergence of archaeological finds was inevitable, but the crime here is that many known sites are not properly investigated and bulldozers are passed over them without proper discoveries. This is done even in areas known to have lost villages or Roman settlements.
Runkin continued:
They do what they do best, PR. Which means they’re going to turn the tinge around and make it look positive about all the very negative events, all these areas that they’ve destroyed.
HS2 said it was conducting extensive investigations to identify buried archaeological information and was working with historic England and local experts. It was stated that “remarkable archaeological sites were approached with care”.
