For centuries now, people have been fearful of corpses rising from their graves to haunt the living. Fast forward to today, archaeologists think they have discovered evidence of medieval tactics to prevent the “walking dead.” The researchers revisited a pit of human remains uncovered nearly 1,000 years earlier, finding that the corpses were burned and mutilated after death. The findings offered two explanations: cannibalism or the bodies were dismembered to ensure they would not haunt the living. Upon initial discovery, the bones were thought to have been inadvertently disturbed dating all the way back to the Roman-era. Radiocarbon dating, however, proved the bones were contemporary with the local medieval town. The newest findings unveil the best archaeological evidence of this practice, representing a dark side of medieval beliefs and detailing a graphic reminder of how different the medieval view was at that time.
See Megan Gannon, Walking Dead? Medieval Villagers Zombie-Proofed Their Corpses, Fox News, April 10, 2017.
