Archaeologists have analyzed a mass grave in southeastern Europe that contained the remains of women and children who were violently murdered 2,800 years ago. The tomb may hold the key to understanding the development of strategic mass violence in the Early Iron Age, researchers report in a new study.
The tomb was uncovered at the archaeological site of Gomolava, located near the modern town of Hrtkovci in northern Serbia. Originally founded as a settlement on the Sava River in sixth millennium BCboth settled and mobile cultural groups used Gomolava repeatedly over the centuries. In the 8th century BC, semi-sedentary groups in the Carpathian Basin consolidated around places such as Gomolava, creating tensions over land use and ownership.
Gomolava “was located at a physical, political and conceptual flashpoint” — and the consequences of these new interactions were deadly, researchers wrote in the study, which was published Monday (Feb. 23) in the journal Nature Human behavior.
The researchers focused their analysis on a small mass grave at Gomolava that was only 9.5 feet (2.9 meters) in diameter and 1.6 feet (0.5 m) deep. Archaeologists discovered post holes around the burial pit which suggested that there had been some kind of memorial to the grave. The pit also contained ceramic vessels and small bronze accessories, along with bones from nearly 100 animals, including the entire skeleton of a young cow at the very bottom of the pit.
But when the researchers began to study the 77 human skeletons in the pit, they found that more than 70% of the skeletons were women and 69% were children.
“The predominance of females and younger individuals in the mass grave at Gomolava is exceptional in European prehistory,” the researchers wrote.
In addition, the archaeologists found extensive evidence of intentional, violent, lethal trauma to the victims’ heads that involved “close contact and particularly blunt force, which could have resulted from a variety of implements or weapons,” they wrote. The attackers may have been significantly taller than the victims or on horseback, given the location of the injuries, the team said.
“Overall, the pattern reveals severe violence that was brutal, deliberate and effective,” the researchers wrote.
To learn more about the victims, the researchers studied the individuals DNA. This analysis revealed that only a handful of the 77 individuals had close biological ties, suggesting that the killing was not a raid on a settlement of extended families. A study of the skeletons’ strontium isotope ratios – a chemical variant found in tooth enamel that is influenced by geographic origin – also showed that more than a third of the people grew up outside the Gomolava region.
“Clearly, this is a heterogeneous collection of individuals,” study lead author Linda Fibigera bioarchaeologist at the University of Edinburgh, told LiveScience in an email. Gomolava was “a focus for burying mainly women and children who were brutally killed at that time,” she said.
But the cause of the mass violence remains elusive.
In the 8th century BC countless cultural groups moved and settled across the Carpathian Basin. This population influx, combined with tension between mobile and sedentary lifestyles, may have created a “potentially explosive set of conflicting ideologies about land use and ownership,” the researchers wrote. This tension may have led to the forced migration or displacement of certain people, the capture and killing of specific groups, and the exchange of women and children through marriage or foster care.
“There is nothing osteologically or archaeologically to indicate that these individuals were captured and held for some time,” Fibiger said. “We are looking at changing settlement structure, land use and most likely accompanying power structures.”
A second mass grave was also found at Gomolava in 1954. This pit contained mostly female skeletons in addition to animal bones, metal objects and pottery dating to the same era.
Both mass graves may have been intended as gatherings of valuable objects and people, the researchers wrote. Women and children were essential to the survival of these societies, which led the researchers to conclude that the murders of these individuals were intended as genealogical disruption.
“Together, the murder event, the mortuary event, and the resulting monument signal a chain of actions intended to resolve or eradicate conflict and rebalance power within or between communities,” the researchers wrote, resulting in “mass violence and power assertion in prehistoric Europe.”
Fibiger, L., M. Iraeta-Orbegozo, J. Koledin, et al. (2026). A large Early Iron Age mass grave indicates selective violence against women and children in the Carpathian Basin. Nature Human behavior. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02399-9
