Game of Thrones-like barons in England were responsible for the brutal massacre of dozens of people 2,000 years ago, research has revealed.
The 62 skeletons, found with skulls “smashed to oblivion”, were unearthed in 1936 at a mass burial site in Maiden Castle, Dorset.
Researchers at the time blamed the Roman invasion of Britain in AD43 for their deaths - something that resonated with British fears of a Nazi invasion in the 1930s.
But Bournemouth University archaeologist Dr Miles Russell revealed the bones actually dated to around the first century AD, by using modern dating techniques.
“They died violently and with overkill. These were Game of Thrones-like barons with one dynasty wiping out another,” Dr Russell told The Independent.
“Their skulls have been repeatedly smashed to oblivion with swords and other weapons. People were dragged up there and put to death.”
Dr Russell said those killed were an aristocratic elite murdered and buried with honour, something that would not have been done for common criminals.
“They could have been competing for a throne or power, and it was important to finish them off and destroy the blood line,” he added.
Sir Mortimer Wheeler led excavations of the Iron Age hill fort in the 1930s, and popularised the idea that the remains belonged to English people slain by “barbaric” pillaging Romans.
Because the site was still occupied in AD43, Sir Mortimer was convinced the skeletons were evidence of a Roman campaign against native Britons, according to Historic England.
Dr Russell said this was a reasonable assumption to make at the time without access to modern carbon dating systems used today.
He said this dramatic explanation for the burial site would have helped attract funding for archaeological digs, something that was in short supply in the 1930s.
“They were thugs with resources and private armies. The hill fort dominated the horizon, and these people were done to death publicly,” Dr Russell added.
Maiden Castle is one of the largest Iron Age hill forts in Europe, around the size of 50 football pitches, according to Historic England.
The castle’s ramparts were constructed around 2,400 years ago and protected hundreds of residents.
Within a few decades of the arrival of the Romans, the hill fort was abandoned, Historic England added.
The Romans then built the town of Dorchester to the north-east as the regional capital of the Durotriges.
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