Iron Age mass grave reveals unprecedented violence against women and children

Nature News · Feb 23, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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A ninth-century mass grave in Gomolava in southeastern Europe reveals violent social upheavals. Credit: Lanmas/AlamyA mass grave from a ninth-century site in Gomolava, Serbia, has been revealed to contain the bodies of dozens of women and children who died in targeted attacks. The massacre presents an unprecedented case of violence targeted at women and children in the European early Iron Age, raising questions about the changing sociopolitical landscape at the time.The analysis of 77 bodies at Gomolava, published on 23 February in Nature Human Behaviour1, revealed strategic violence on a scale and selectiveness that was “certainly new“ to researchers studying the time period, says study co-author Linda Fibiger, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Edinburgh, UK. The findings give clues to shifts in power, violence and gender relations in the region, probably brought about by interactions between migrant and settled communities.Archaeological evidence suggests that groups of women and children were more commonly captured for ransom, work or procreation than they were targets of massacres, says Mario Novak, a bioarchaeologist at the Institute for Anthropological Research in Zagreb. The gender bias of violence recorded at Gomolava was remarkable for the period and region. “In the 20 years I’ve been studying this phenomenon, I haven’t seen anything similar,” he says.Targeted violenceThe mid-ninth century was a period of flux in southeastern Europe, marked by population movements across the landscape. Historians speculate that interactions between migrant communities could have led to tensions in the region, but scant archaeological evidence has given credence to these theories.Gomolava is one of the largest single-event mass graves excavated from prehistoric and early Iron Age Europe. Previous analyses of skeletal remains from the site led to the assumption that the deaths were caused by a pandemic2. However, screening for pathogenic DNA found no infectious agents at the site3.Read the paper: Ancient DNA connects large-scale migration with the spread of SlavsThe researchers analysed bioarchaeological, genetic and isotope data for 77 individuals at Gomolava, exploring the individuals’ ancestry as well as potential genealogical relationships to one another. Two-thirds of the individuals were children or adolescents, and of the 72 that could have their sex determined, 51 were women or girls. The victims were not related to one another, with the exception of one mother and her two daughters. And although many of the women who were analysed grew up close to Gomolava, a large number originated outside the Carpathian Basin region.