Archaeologists Unearthed Something in England That Defies What We Know About the Bronze Age Britons

In the 1970s, cavers digging into a 20 m natural shaft on the Mendip Hills in Somerset found human bones mixed with cattle bones, and a 1988 report called the cut-marked human bones "likely to be ritual deposits". In December 2024, an Oxford-led study in Antiquity re-examined more than 3,000 bones and fragments from at least 37 men, women and children. Its 11 radiocarbon dates point most likely to a single event between about 2210 and 2010 BC. Nearly half the dead were older children and teenagers, and 1 in 5 of the pieces carries cut marks. What happened at the bottom of that shaft? Subscribe to the channel: @thedigdispatch In this video, we talk about the Charterhouse Warren massacre in Early Bronze Age Somerset, including the cavers' 1988 ritual reading, the radiocarbon dates that point to one event, the skull injuries, cut marks, marrow breaks and probable human chew marks, the plague found in two of the children, the cattle bones that rule out famine, the skull cups of nearby Gough's Cave, and the theory of revenge and "othering" behind it all. 🔔 Subscribe for the next story the record contradicts, told with the evidence in full. 💬 Comment where you're watching from, and whether you think revenge alone explains Charterhouse Warren. 📢 Share this with anyone who thinks the age of Stonehenge was a peaceful one, on Facebook, Reddit or your group chats. You're the reason this channel keeps digging into the record. Chapters: 00:00 Opening 00:53 Bronze, beakers and careful graves 03:16 Cavers looking for a cave 05:54 Eleven dates and one event 09:41 What the knives were for 13:20 The headlines, the skull cups and the feud 16:48 A museum in Wells and half a shaft Sources: Schulting et al., 'The darker angels of our nature': Early Bronze Age butchered human remains from Charterhouse Warren, Somerset, UK (Antiquity, 2025) https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/an... University of Oxford, Analysis of butchered bones suggests violent 'othering' of enemies in Bronze Age Britain (2024) https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2024-12-16-analy... Swali et al., Yersinia pestis genomes reveal plague in Britain 4000 years ago (Nature Communications, 2023) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023... Audsley et al., Charterhouse Warren Farm Swallet: Exploration, geomorphology, taphonomy and archaeology (UBSS Proceedings, 1988) https://ubss.org.uk/publications/proceedin... Current Archaeology, Bronze Age brutality? Exploring evidence for interpersonal violence at Charterhouse Warren (2025) https://the-past.com/feature/bronze-age-br... Natural History Museum, The cannibals of Gough's Cave https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/the-canniba... Francis Crick Institute, 4,000-year-old plague DNA found: the oldest cases to date in Britain (2023) https://www.crick.ac.uk/news/2023-05-30_40... DISCLAIMER: This video is based on real historical events and figures, drawn from the sources listed above alongside primary archives, biographies, court records, period press, and leading historical scholarship. While every video is heavily researched, occasional minor inaccuracies in dates, quotes, or specific details may occur — historical sources sometimes disagree, and interpretation is sometimes required where the historical record is silent. Any errors are unintentional. #TheDigDispatch #CharterhouseWarren #BronzeAge #EarlyBronzeAge #Somerset #MendipHills #England #Archaeology #BritishArchaeology #Prehistory #RadiocarbonDating #AncientDNA #Plague #Cannibalism #GoughsCave #CheddarGorge #Wells #BellBeaker #Stonehenge #Isotopes #AncientHistory #Documentary #History