Publication of an article in Nature

Back in 2008 TVAS excavated a Late Saxon Period massacre grave at St Giles in Oxford (see previous information release here).

The 35 men and boys (children) were thought to be ‘sprouting like cockle amongst the wheat’ (Blair 1994) and a pogrom was carried out on orders of King Aethelred against the Danes who had raided and settled in England. It became known as the St. Brice’s day massacre of 1002 AD.

Above: sk1756 during excavations at St. Johns, Oxford.

Above: Skull after cleaning showing blade damage.

The article in Nature can be found here:

Margaryan, A., Lawson, D.J., Sikora, M. et al. 2020, Population genomics of the Viking world. Nature 585, 390-396

Reference:

Blair 1994, 168 quoting Anglo-Saxon charter S909; transl. Whitelock 1979, 591; Swanton 2000, 135 has an insignificantly different translation