PAST CRIMESprehistoric or ancient sites to be selected for execution places, due to the
perception of their ancient power in the landscape. It is also close to an Anglo
Saxon boundary between two hundreds; execution sites were often‘liminal’–
on the edges of normal life. Samples of bones from the site were sent for
radiocarbon dating, and a range of dates between 640 and 1040 were extracted,
suggesting that the site was used sporadically for several hundred years.
Twelve skeletons were analysed; two retained their heads, ten did not.
Some bodies were laid out on their backs, others were curled up, and three
were buried in a single grave. Eleven disarticulated skulls were also found.
Five of the skeleton belonged to young adults, aged between eighteen and
twentyfive, and four were a little older, between twentysix and thirtyfive.
The others were all adults, none over fortyfive. They were all male. Of the
disarticulated skulls, seven appear to have been buried as bones, suggesting
the heads had been displayed, perhaps on stakes, prior to burial. They were
lacking their jaws, which might have dropped off as the head decomposed.
A slight problem was found with the skulls in that a number turned up in an
old badger sett, but is it not very likely that the badgers collected them. At
least four of the heads had been cut off while the flesh was still on them, and
so were probably from people who had been beheaded. Cut marks on the
bones of some of the skeletons and skulls confirmed this impression. This is a
higher percentage than usual – far fewer beheadings were seen at three
execution cemeteries excavated in Surrey (Staines, Ashtead and Guildown)
where hanging seems to have been a more usual practice. The executioners in
Yorkshire seem to have been somewhat amateurish–they did not despatch
their victims cleanly. One young man had suffered three blows to his neck
before the executioner succeeded in cutting off his head. A feature of some
execution cemeteries is the strange placement of decapitated skulls –
sometimes between the legs. In some cases there are extra skulls in graves–
possibly heads which had previously displayed before being removed to make
way for new ones. For some reason, this seems to have happened more often
in Surrey, a county with a particularly large number of known execution
cemeteries.^2
Execution cemeteries differ from other burial sites because of the way in
which the bodies have been treated, and because of the types of trauma that
are seen. Sometimes the bodies are laid in strange positions, like those
discovered at Sutton Hoo, close to the famous burial mounds. Thirtynine
‘sand bodies’ socalled because all the physical remains of the bodies had
disappeared into the acid sand, leaving just an impression of where they lay
have been found there, dating from between the eighth and eleventh centuries,