Archaeologists have found evidence of a massacre linked to Iron Age warfare at a hill fort in Derbyshire.
A burial site contained only women and children – the first segregated burial of this kind from Iron Age Britain.
Nine skeletons were discovered in a section of ditch around the fort at Fin Cop in the Peak District.
Scientists believe “perhaps hundreds more skeletons” could be buried in the ditch, only a small part of which has been excavated so far.
Construction of the hill fort has been dated to some time between 440BC and 390BC, but it was destroyed before completion.
The fort’s stone wall was broken apart and the rubble used to fill the 400m perimeter ditch, where the skeletons were found.
A second, outer wall and ditch had been started but not finished.