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Note for parents / guardians: Parental guidance recommended for all stories. Not suitable for children aged 12 and under.

Extreme violence in a one-off event?

How and why did 40 people, all showing brutal violence and cannibalism, end up in a cave on Mendip?

Charterhouse Warren Swallet is a natural shaft in the limestone in this area. Cavers in the 1970s found a large collection of bones, human and animal, about 15 metres down the hole.

At least 40 men, women and children are represented by fragments and bones separated at the joints. They all date to 4,150 – 3,950 years ago, the Early Bronze Age. This type of remains is very unusual for the time, normally whole bodies would be laid out on their own, in burial mounds, the ‘barrows’ we see across the top of Mendip. The scale of the bone collection in this cave is unique in Britain and suggests a very unusual, extremely violent event!

Specific radiocarbon dating is still taking place but it’s possible that one event led to all 40 men, women and children suffering the brutal violence. The evidence for blunt force injuries to people’s heads before they died, together with evidence of dismemberment alongside fracturing of long bones suggests an episode of extreme violence. Nothing on this scale has been found before dating to this time.

Was this a ritual of some kind? Was it the result of a battle? What other dark secrets are hidden away in the underworld of Mendip?

Photo by Katherine Kromberg

Author’s Note: All stories have been based on historical accounts, but are not a comprehensive or completely factual account and reflect hearsay, myths and legends developed over time.

For more information and the locations of other Darker Side of Mendip Legends please go to: Darker Side of Mendip – Mendip Hills National Landscape (mendiphills-nl.org.uk)