Bone trove in Denmark tells story of 'Barbarian' battle - May they rest well in Valhalla
Thousands of bones from germanic boys and men likely killed in a ferocious battle 2,000 years ago have been unearthed from a bog in Denmark, researchers said Monday.
Without local written records to explain, or a battlefield to scour for evidence, experts are nevertheless piecing together a story of the Germanic people, often described by the Romans as "barbarians" for their violent nature.
Four pelvic bones strung on a stick were among the remains of at least 82 people found during archaeological excavations at Alken Enge, on Denmark's Jutland peninsula, indicating an organized and ritual clearing of a battlefield, said the report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The site, which has been studied since 2009, has yielded the earliest discovery of "a large contingent of fighters from a defeated army from the early first century AD," said the PNAS report.
The bones are extremely well preserved," co-author Mette Løvschal, of the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies at Aarhus University, told AFP.
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