Are they Vikings? on Ridgeway Hill near Weymouth in Dorset

Description:

The mass grave uncovered by archaeologists at Ridgeway Hill, near Weymouth in rural Dorset, is a rare discovery. The men had all been executed, their heads hacked off with swords - but who were they?

In early June, the team from Oxford Archaeology had finished excavating the area where a £87m relief road, from Dorchester to Weymouth, is being built.

But as the diggers went in to level the banks to the side of the new road, which runs along an ancient Roman way, skulls and bones started appearing. In total, 51 skulls have been found along with the bodies they once were attached to.

'Robust men'

Radiocarbon dating showed they were from between AD 890 and AD 1030, a time when there was considerable conflict between the resident Saxon population and invading Vikings.

David Score, Oxford Archaeology project manager, said they had several theories as to why the bodies ended up there. They may have been invading Vikings from Scandinavia or Viking descendants who had settled in the Dane Law area in the north and east of England.