Friday 1 July 2022 02:30 PM Two thousand-year-old human remains are found on an Iron Age site in Dorset trends now
Two thousand-year-old human remains and animal sacrifices have been found at a newly-discovered Iron Age settlement in Dorset.
The site, which includes round houses and storage pits, was uncovered by archaeology students at Bournemouth University last September.
It dates from around 100 years BC, well before the Roman invasion of Britain.
Over the course of the last three weeks, a team of 65 students from the university have been excavating the site in Winterborne Kingston.
During this time, they uncovered the bodies of women and men, as well as animal body parts in storage pits originally used to hold grain.
The bodies were found in crouched positions in oval shaped pits and had been buried with joints of meat and pottery bowls originally containing drinks.
Unearthed: Two thousand-year-old human remains and animal sacrifices have been found at a newly-discovered Iron Age settlement in Dorset
The bodies were found in crouched positions in oval shaped pits and had been buried with joints of meat and pottery bowls originally containing drinks
The site, which includes round houses and storage pits, was uncovered by archaeology students at Bournemouth University last September
Experts say the discovery of prehistoric people who lived on the site, as well as items from their everyday lives, is providing fascinating new clues about Iron Age lifestyle.
'We know a lot about life in Britain during and after the Roman invasion because so much has been written down,' said Dr Miles Russell, from Bournemouth University.
'But we do not have anything written about life before, the answers to how they lived come solely from what we find in the ground.'
Teams of students and staff from the university have been surveying and excavating sites in the local area for several years.
In 2015 they completed the excavation of a large Iron Age town which they named 'Duropolis', after the Durotriges tribes who lived in the region.
The settlement they are working on today is about half a mile to the north of Duropolis.
Archaeologists hope the new discoveries will help them understand more about religious practices in communities at the time.
'The animal remains that we're finding placed in the bottom of pits would have provided weeks of food for this settlement, so it's a significant sacrifice to their gods to bury so much in the ground,' said Dr Russell.
Over the course of the last three weeks, a team of 65 students from the university have been excavating the site in Winterborne Kingston
During this time, they uncovered the bodies of women and men, as well as animal body parts (pictured) in storage pits originally used to hold grain
Experts say the discovery of prehistoric people who lived on the site, as well as items from their everyday lives, is providing fascinating new clues about Iron Age lifestyle
'In some pits, animal parts had
