Human Sacrifice in Ancient Britain

In 2010, archaeologists excavating an Iron Age settlement in Dorset uncovered something deeply unsettling. At the bottom of a disused storage pit lay the body of a woman, face down, lying on a carefully arranged platform of weathered animal bones. Her neck vertebra bore a massive cut—someone had held her from behind and slashed her throat. She had been thrown into the pit still bleeding, her life draining into the ground. This was the Winterborne Woman, and she is one of the most compelling pieces of evidence that the people of Iron Age Britain did not merely execute criminals—they performed human sacrifice.

The Roman Problem

The question of whether ancient Britons sacrificed humans has long been tangled up with Roman propaganda. Writers like Julius Caesar described the Celts as barbarians who burned people alive in giant wicker figures, cut open victims to read entrails, and committed atrocities that proved their primitive religion needed stamping out. "You don't want your opponents to sound like nice guys," notes Dr. Miles Russell of Bournemouth University. The Romans were happy to condemn human sacrifice while themselves killing thousands for entertainment in the arena or crucifying tens of thousands as public warnings. "Killing somebody to appease gods is wrong," Russell explains. "But killing people for entertainment—that's fine."