Archaeologists uncover body of girl stabbed in neck as part of human sacrifice

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The remains were found during excavations of a pre-historic settlement dating back 2,000 years at Winterborne Kingston in central Dorset. “The combination of factors in their study suggest that this is rare physical evidence that human sacrifice took place in Iron Age Britain.” The excavation site of pre-historic settlement dating back 2,000 years at Winterborne Kingston in central Dorset Dr Martin Smith, Associate Professor in Forensic and Biological Anthropology, said: “In the other burials we have found, the deceased people appear to have been carefully positioned in the pit and treated with respect, but this poor woman hasn’t. “The young woman was found lying face down on top of a strange, deliberately constructed crescent shaped arrangement of animal bone at the bottom of a pit, so it looks like she was killed as part of an offering.” The study, published in the Antiquities Journal, explains how the woman’s spine showed signs of significant degeneration and arthritic change for her young age, and she also had damage to some of the discs between her vertebrae suggesting exertion from regular hard work. The excavation site of pre-historic settlement dating back 2,000 years at Winterborne Kingston in central Dorset Dr Smith said: “All the significant facts we have found such as the problems with her spine, her tough working life, the major injury to her rib, the fact she could have come from elsewhere, and the way she was buried could be explained away in isolation.