Rather than Roman conquest causing the violence, indigenous Celtic tribes were tearing themselves apart in dynastic conflicts before the Romans even arrived
BOURNEMOUTH, England -- For nearly a century, one of Britain's most famous archaeological discoveries has told the wrong story. The so-called "war cemetery" at Maiden Castle, a massive Iron Age hillfort in Dorset, England, was long believed to contain victims of a brutal Roman assault around 43 AD. But new radiocarbon dating reveals something far more intriguing: these weren't casualties of foreign conquest, but victims of homegrown violence spanning multiple generations.
New findings, published in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology, challenge a cornerstone interpretation that has shaped how we understand Britain's transition from Iron Age to Roman rule. Instead of a single devastating battle, researchers discovered evidence of episodic violence among elite members of society in the decades before the Romans arrived -- pointing to increasing social tensions in a society tearing itself apart from within.
When Archaeological Legend Meets Modern Science
Maiden Castle's reputation as Britain's most dramatic archaeological site traces back to excavations in the 1930s by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, one of archaeology's most colorful figures. Wheeler discovered 34 skeletons with horrific injuries -- sword cuts to skulls, spear points lodged in spines, and evidence of what he called "overkill" violence. The trauma was so severe that Wheeler famously declared: "surely no poor relic in the soil of Britain was ever more fraught with high tragedy."
Wheeler's interpretation seemed straightforward: Roman legions had stormed the hillfort and slaughtered its defenders. One skeleton even had what appeared to be a Roman ballista bolt embedded in its spine. The story became archaeological gospel, taught in textbooks and museums worldwide.
"The tale of innocent men and women of the local Durotriges tribe being slaughtered by Rome is powerful and poignant. It features in countless articles, books and TV documentaries. It has become a defining moment in British history, marking the sudden and violent end of the Iron Age," said study director Dr. Miles Russell, Principal Academic in Prehistoric and Roman Archaeology at Bournemouth University, in a statement.
"The trouble is it doesn't appear to have actually happened. Unfortunately, the archaeological evidence now points to it being untrue," he adds.
Modern science describes a different tale. Russell and his team obtained 22 new radiocarbon dates from the skeletal remains, using advanced techniques unavailable in Wheeler's era. Rather than clustering around 43 AD, the burials spread across roughly 80 years, from about 50 BC to 30 AD.
Elite Victims of Systematic Brutality
Even more revealing than the timing was the pattern of who died and how. The cemetery shows clear signs of selectivity -- it's dominated by young adult males, many bearing multiple traumatic injuries that far exceeded what would be necessary to kill someone.
Analysis of chemical signatures in the bones revealed another crucial detail: these weren't ordinary Iron Age farmers. The bone chemistry indicated diets rich in animal protein, marking them as high-status individuals. In an agricultural society where most people ate primarily grains and vegetables, a meat-heavy diet was a luxury of the elite.
Perhaps most intriguingly, six graves contained pairs of individuals buried simultaneously -- a practice virtually unknown elsewhere in Iron Age Britain. These "double burials" showed the highest rates of violent trauma, with 91% of individuals bearing weapon injuries.
Internal Power Struggles, Not Foreign Conquest
The researchers propose that these deaths resulted from internal power struggles among the Durotriges, the Celtic tribe that controlled this region. The pattern resembles what historians call dynastic violence, or targeted killings of elite families to eliminate rivals and consolidate power.
Recent DNA analysis of Iron Age populations in the area revealed a society organized along family lines where wealth and status passed through women. The double burials, containing mostly men, might represent the systematic elimination of family lines, with closely related males killed together to prevent future claims to power.
According to the researchers, "The extreme nature of violence detected at Maiden Castle, particularly amongst extended and double burials, inflicting multiple wounds in combinations far beyond what would be required to terminate or incapacitate, constitutes overkill." This level of brutality served as psychological warfare intended to terrorize potential rivals and send a clear message about power.
Rewriting History
Archaeological sites across Britain are being reexamined with similar results. Violence that was once blamed on Roman invaders is increasingly attributed to indigenous conflicts -- cattle raids, territorial disputes, and political struggles that mirror conflicts throughout human history.
The famous "ballista bolt" in the spine? Reanalysis shows it was actually a native spear or javelin point, not Roman military hardware. Many other supposed Roman weapons and tactics attributed to the site have similarly been reinterpreted as evidence of indigenous warfare.
For the people buried at Maiden Castle, their deaths mark the end of an era not because Romans conquered their land, but because their own society was tearing itself apart. The Roman conquest, when it finally came, may have actually ended the cycles of elite violence that had plagued the region for generations. In a historical irony that Wheeler never could have imagined, the Romans weren't the source of the carnage at Maiden Castle -- they were the ones who ultimately stopped it.
The question that remains: what else could be hiding at the site?
"Here we interpret this as either a number of distinct cultures living and dying together, or we can understand this as burial rights that were determined by complex social rules or hierarchical divisions within this Iron Age society," said Paul Cheetham, a visiting fellow at Bournemouth. "Whilst Wheeler's excavation was excellent, he was only able to investigate a fraction of the site. It is likely that a larger number of burials remain undiscovered around the immense ramparts."