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century of human bones have been dredged from the bottom of England ’s River Thames over the retiring two 100 , and a new bailiwick of these skeletons suggests that most of them date back to the Bronze and Iron ages . But why people deposited corpses into the Thames remains an open question .
In a study published Jan. 28 in the journalAntiquity , researcher detailed their analysis ofradiocarbon datesfrom 30 skeletons discovered in the Thames , with a end of inquire when and why army corps ended up in the river .
Volunteers cleaning the banks of the River Thames of rubbish and debris.
" Most people — let in Londoners ! — are quite get aback to hear that hundreds of human bones have do from the River Thames , " sketch lead authorNichola Arthur , a curator at the Natural History Museum in London , told Live Science in an electronic mail . Human skeletons " have been encountered fairly on a regular basis in the water places of northwest Europe , " Arthur said , but " the Thames human bones represent a unambiguously big assemblage . "
Researchers have analyse skeleton from the Thames since the 19th one C . One early theory about these discoveries was that the corpses came from a battle betweenCeltsandRomans , while in the late twentieth 100 , experts suggested most of the bodies came from corroding of riverbank burials and drowning victims .
" The bighearted question for these human bone is how they came to be in the river , " Arthur said . Her first step was to produce dozens of carbon 14 go steady to better realise when the bodies ended up there .
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When the researcher merged their 30 new radiocarbon dates with 31 late dates , they key that the Thames soundbox come from 4000 B.C. to A.D. 1800 — a straddle of nearly 6,000 old age . But most came from the Bronze Age ( 2300 to 800 B.C. ) and the Iron Age ( 800 B.C. to A.D. 43 ) and were find in upstream zone of the river .
" We can now say with authority that these do n’t appear to just be bones that have steadily accumulated in the river through clock time , " Arthur say . " There really was something meaning going on in the Bronze and Iron Ages . "
The precise reason for the physical structure ' placement in the Thames is unclear , but Arthur suspects that it was part of a wider pattern in northwestern United States Europe in which prehistorical people intentionally deposited ritually important remains in watery stead .
" This research has moved the argument along , but the funerary origin of these remains is yet to be completely study and demonstrated,“Chris Knüsel , a bioarchaeologist at the University of Bordeaux in France , differentiate Live Science in an electronic mail .
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Knüsel , who has also analyse the Thames remains but was not demand in Arthur ’s work , said the evidence may point to a different intellect the human corpse ended up in the Thames : violent face-off resulting from fights over this crucial river .
" vehemence is a particularly mutual theme for later prehistorical human remains from watery places , " Arthur say , includingbog bodieswith evidence of violent deaths , and " we have found patterns of skeletal trauma on the bones of the Thames human remains . "
psychoanalysis of the injuries on the bones is the focus of a forthcoming study . " Exploring on the dot how the Thames human remain might gibe into these practice is one of the next exciting steps of the project , " Arthur tell .
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