How medieval Yorkshire village feared an invasion of zombies rising from the grave

By TERROR of a midnight zombie invasion may be assumed to have no place outside horror films.

But an analysis of medieval bones has shown that, in one village, people really did quake in fear of a night of the living dead. The condition of 137 bones found at the long-deserted settlement of Wharram Percy in North Yorkshire, which indicates the bodies had been mutilated and burnt, had been a source of puzzlement.

However, scientists now believe they represent the first sound archaeological evidence in England of belief in the undead. Theories that the strange treatment of the 10 bodies, thought to date from between the 11th and 14th centuries, was due to the people being mistrusted outsiders or the victims of cannibalism have been debunked.

Instead, the finds appear to point to a superstitious practice of damaging corpses to stop them rising from their graves and menacing the living. The team from Historic England and the University of Southampton found that many of the bones had knife marks, suggesting the corpses had been decapitated and dismembered; they also found evidence of burning and deliberate breaking of bones after death.

Writing in the Journal of Archaeological Science Reports, this correlates with Middle Ages folklore suggesting people can sometimes rise from the dead, commit acts of violence and spread disease.

The team reported that analysis of teeth found in the pit show the corpses came from the same area in which they were buried, discounting the theory they were outsiders. The bones also lack the cluster of knife marks around major muscles that are often found in instances of cannibalism. Simon Mays, a human skeletal biologist at Historic England, said: “It shows us a dark side of medieval beliefs and provides a graphic reminder of how different the medieval view of the world was from our own.”