More than 4,000 years ago, a brutal massacre took place, and a collection of prehistoric human remains provides some insight into this violent conflict.

Researchers analyzed over 3,000 bones and bone fragments from the Early Bronze Age site of Charterhouse Warren in southwest England.

The skeletal remains revealed that the people were killed, butchered, and likely partly consumed before being thrown into a natural shaft nearly 50 feet long. It is believed the massacre event occurred sometime between 2210 B.C. and 2010 B.C.

Based on current knowledge, this level of intensity of violence has never been seen in British prehistory. In Early Bronze Age Britain, which spanned from approximately 2500 B.C. to 1500 B.C., direct physical evidence of violence is rare, even though hundreds of human skeletons have been found from this period.

"We actually find more evidence for injuries to skeletons dating to the Neolithic period in Britain than the Early Bronze Age, so Charterhouse Warren stands out as something very unusual," said Rich Schulting, the lead author of the study and a professor at the University of Oxford.

"It paints a considerably darker picture of the period than many would have expected."

The scattered bones were accidentally discovered in the 1970s in a shaft at Charterhouse Warren by a group of people who were searching for a new cave system in the area.

The bones belonged to at least 37 individuals. They were a mix of men, women, and children, suggesting that they represented a community.

Their skulls showed evidence of violent death from blunt force trauma. When the researchers examined the remains further, they found a number of cut marks and fractures made around the time of death.

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The findings indicate that the victims were killed in close quarters. Then, they were intentionally dismembered and may have been partly consumed. There were no signs of fighting, so the victims were probably taken by surprise when their enemies attacked.

At the site, many cattle bones were sprinkled among the human remains, so the attackers most likely did not eat their victims because they were suffering from a lack of food. Instead, the research team believes they cannibalized the dead as a way of dehumanizing them.

But what could've led to such extreme acts of violence? Climate change and resource competition do not seem to have worsened conflict in Early Bronze Age Britain.

And currently, there is no genetic evidence of ethnic conflict between communities of different ancestries.

So, the conflict was probably driven by social factors. Theft or insults possibly led to tensions, which triggered violence.

According to Schulting, it was unlikely that the massacre was an isolated incident. The victims' friends and relatives would've sought revenge on the attackers.

"Charterhouse Warren is one of those rare archaeological sites that challenges the way we think about the past," said Schulting.

"It is a stark reminder that people in prehistory could match more recent atrocities and shines a light on a dark side of human behavior. That it is unlikely to have been a one-off event makes it even more important that its story is told."