Worlebury hillfort, Somerset: Interdisciplinary reanalysis of an Iron Age massacre

Legge, Michael, Castells Navarro, Laura, Bleasdale, Madeleine, Metz, Sebastian, Hamilton, Derek, Nederbragt, Alexandra, Millet, Marc-Alban ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2710-5374, Madgwick, Richard ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4396-3566 and Armit, Ian 2026. Worlebury hillfort, Somerset: Interdisciplinary reanalysis of an Iron Age massacre. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 10.1017/ppr.2025.10073

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Abstract

Excavations at the Iron Age site of Worlebury hillfort during the mid-late 19th century revealed a large number of human skeletal remains, interpreted as victims of a ‘massacre’. Reanalysis of these remains, combining AMS dating, osteological, aDNA, histotaphonomy, and isotope analysis, has enabled a re-evaluation of this hypothesis. AMS dating lends support to the notion that many of these individuals may have died during a single episode, while osteological analysis has identified significant evidence for perimortem trauma, and the histology supports a short period between death and deposition. The genetic data suggest that the human remains represent a group with biological links through the maternal line and connections to another nearby site, while the isotope values are consistent with a local population, consuming animals raised in a salt-marsh environment like the Severn Estuary. Our results demonstrate the value of returning to often unpromising antiquarian collections using an integrated suite of modern analytical approaches.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Earth and Environmental Sciences
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
ISSN:	0079-497X
Last Modified:	11 Feb 2026 12:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/184706

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