this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2025
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Missing Skeletons (europe.pub)
submitted 1 day ago by tetris11@feddit.uk to c/casualuk@feddit.uk
9 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Anyone find it weird that we simply don't know where some significant historically documented battles took place.

Like Boudicea's final stand is somewhere near the London part of Watling street (a street that extends from Dover to Wroxeter via St Albans), with 80 000 losses, and we've just... never found the bones.

Same with the Battle of Stamford Bridge, where we know 8000 people died (including Harald Hardrada) somewhere in the Derwent River, but no bridge or bones found.

We know these events happened from written record, but the physicality of it just isn't present.

I don't know what I'm really trying to say other than that I feel there's a weird disconnect to a past that existed.

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[–] Codpiece@feddit.uk 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It could be that it might have been considered normal, or quite unimportant to the vast majority of people at the time (and subsequent generations) that it just wasn’t documented or remembered. Plus Boudica was quite a way from home, maybe it wasn’t such a big deal to the local people.

And as for the bones maybe they’ve been eaten away completely by certain types of soil? I’m no archaeologist!

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'd argue that a mass grave of 80k people at a time when there were less than a million people in the UK, is something that would be hard to miss or forget

[–] Codpiece@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If I knew two very large armies were heading my way for a massive fight, I think I’d have got out of the way. Maybe there wasn’t anyone around who could have told you where it happened. Maybe they were more concerned with where their next turnip was coming from.

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah, and I guess if there's a massive pileup on the motorway people will just tut, and drive around it everyday to work without a second thought