In Serbia, archaeologists have discovered a mass grave that bears witness to a brutal massacre of primarily women and children around 2,800 years ago. Among the 77 dead are 40 children and eleven teenagers, as well as at least 21 women. The skeletons of the victims buried in the pit show signs of being beaten and stabbed. What is surprising, however, is that the dead were not related to each other and may not even have come from the same place.
Conflict and violence have probably always been part of human history. Mass graves from the Stone Age and Bronze Age testify to the fact that entire groups of people were repeatedly violently killed and buried. “Early cases of such collective violence tended to involve relatively indiscriminate killings of small groups of men, women and children,” explain Linda Fibiger of the University of Edinburgh and her colleagues. Conflicts between local groups were often the trigger, and entire families or settlements were often wiped out. Later, in the Bronze Age, mass graves of killed men or prisoners of war appeared, testifying to increasingly organized, war-like conflicts.
Skeletons of 77 people killed violently
But in northern Serbia, Fibinger and her team discovered a mass grave that does not fit into common patterns. The relatively small pit is located in Gomolava, a place on the edge of the Pannonian steppe and almost in the center of the Carpathian depression. Around 2,800 years ago, this region was characterized by upheavals and conflicts between nomadic groups and sedentary farmers. “Amid these tensions between sedentary and mobile lifestyles, different communities established a potentially explosive mix of conflicting ideas about land use and ownership,” the archaeologists explain.
In this respect, the Gomolava mass grave certainly fits into the picture at first glance. In the pit, the team identified the skeletons of 77 dead people who apparently died violently. This is indicated by numerous unhealed skull injuries, mostly from blows to the back of the head with blunt weapons. “There were also numerous wounds from arrows or spears, indicating that the victims had tried to escape their murderers,” write Fibinger and her colleagues. “Overall, the injuries indicate massive violence that was brutal, targeted and efficient.”
Almost only women and children – but no family
However, when the archaeologists examined the victims of this violent act more closely, something surprising emerged. Of the 77 dead, 40 were children under the age of twelve, eleven were teenagers and at least 21 were adult women. “When we see early historic mass graves with these demographics, we tend to expect that a family or a village was attacked,” says senior author Barry Molloy from University College Dublin. But this was apparently not the case in Gomolava. Isotope analyzes showed that the dead were not of local origin, but came from a larger area in the Carpathian Basin.
The DNA analyzes of some of the dead also spoke against a family or kinship group: “Gomolava really surprised us when our genetic analyzes showed that the majority of these people were not related to each other, not even their great-great-grandparents,” says Molloy. “This is highly unusual for a prehistoric mass grave and not what we would expect if these people had lived in a village.” The women and children in the mass grave were therefore a heterogeneous group and must have been gathered there from different settlements and communities before their death. It is still unclear whether this happened immediately before her death at the hands of the perpetrators or some time before.
First murdered, then carefully buried
But the Gomolava mass grave is unusual in another way. “Normally, the victims in such mass graves are simply buried without much care. The dead from Gomolava were also hastily buried in an unused, semi-underground dwelling. But their bodies were not stripped of their valuables and, in addition, offerings were even given to them in the pit,” reports Molloy. This is evidenced by bronze jewelry, ceramic vessels and a whole layer of animal bones among the dead. Grinding stones were also placed on the grave and a burial mound was built.
According to archaeologists, all this suggests that more than just an ordinary raid occurred at this site 2,800 years ago. Perhaps the brutal murder of the women and children was intended to send a warning message to the surrounding population. “The killings and subsequent ritual burial could be read as a show of power and an attempt to gain dominance over land and resources,” says Fibinger. The perpetrators did not hesitate to kill even valuable population resources such as women of fertile age and children and young people who could potentially become slaves.
Source: University College Dublin, specialist article: Nature Human Behavior, doi: 10.1038/s41562-025-02399-9