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Decapitated skeletons were Vikings: scientists

Analysis of mass grave discovered last year suggests the victims were publicly executed 1,000 years agoScientific analysis has revealed that the victims of one of the most gruesome archaeological discoveries of recent years - dozens of decapitated skeletons buried with their skulls neatly stacked but their bodies tumbled chaotically into a pit - were Vikings slaughtered in Dorset about 1,000 years ago."This was not a burial in any sense that we understand the term - this was disposal after a very public execution," said David Score, project manager of the Oxford Archaeology unit, which excavated the site.Not so much as a bone button was found in the pit, suggesting that the young men met their death naked. Slash marks on the bones show that very few were cleanly decapitated - many must have been finished off as they lay on the ground.Score's interpretation of the neatly laid out skulls and the tangle of other bones is equally horrific: he believes the heads were originally stacked up in a terrifying symbol of

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