The discovery of a 5,000-year-old house in China has given archaeologists quite a gruesome sight.
The site of the prehistoric village
The bodies were found crammed into the house, which measures at just 20 square metres.
Experts aren’t quite sure why all these people – including adults and children – all packed into the house to seemingly die.
There bones were found piled up on one-another, leading the team of archaeologists from Jilin University in China to believe their death may have been due to an epidemic or even some sort of natural disaster.
The team believe people in the ancient village were dying faster than they could be buried and may have been left in the house, never to be given proper burials.
At some point in the last five millennia a fire destroyed the house, charring the bodies and causing the roof to collapse on them, leaving them looking deformed.
Team leaders Ya Wei Zhou and Hong Zhu wrote in the study: ‘This similarity may indicate that the cause of the Hamin Mangha site was similar to that of the Miaozigou sites.
‘That is, they both possibly relate to an outbreak of an acute infectious disease (pestilence).’
Source
Gruesome find but would be interesting to try to find out why they were there and what the cause of death was.
