A 2,800-year-old mass grave in Serbia and the Neanderthals of Abruzzo: two prehistoric worksites

Funerary archaeology rarely makes headline news, but when it does, the numbers speak for themselves. At the Gomolava site, in northern Serbia, a study published in 2026 documents a 2,800-year-old mass grave containing seventy-seven individuals, mostly women and children. The authors attribute them to the victims of a targeted Iron Age massacre. The research was picked up by the 2026 bioarchaeological chronology on Wikipedia and by the communication from the Institute of Archaeology of Serbia reported by Archaeology Magazine.

The two available sources trace back to the same communication from the Serbian institute: the confirmation is not fully independent, and the qualification “targeted massacre” is the study authors’ interpretation, not a fact established by third parties. The available material does not include the dating method, the description of the lesions on the remains, or the extent of the excavation.

However, the demographic composition of the deposit is the element that archaeologists consider indicative: a grave in which women and non-adult individuals prevail describes a dynamic different from that of a battlefield. In the same period, at the western necropolis of Heraclea Sintica in Bulgaria, the discovery was announced of a 4th-century Roman tomb with a woman of mixed European and African ancestry.

The Apennine shelter

The second worksite is Italian and has precise dates: from September 8 to 26, 2026, archaeological investigations resume at the Grottoni di Calascio, in the province of L’Aquila, within the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park. The campaign is conducted by the University of Ferrara, and the program was released by PaleoResearch Unife, as reported by Scintilena. The news currently comes from a single source (the PaleoResearch Unife announcement picked up by Scintilena); no independent confirmation is available.

The site has a long history. The find that made it known emerged half a century ago: in the 1970s, a team from the University of Pisa led by Antonio Mario Radmilli carried out the excavation, recovering the remains of a Neanderthal individual who died between the ages of twelve and fourteen. Dating places them at around 80,000 years ago and, according to the available material, makes them the oldest human remain found so far in Abruzzo.

The return of a university team to an excavation opened half a century ago is not a repetition: sampling, dating and sediment analysis techniques have changed, and layers that in the 1970s were readable only for visible objects are now being examined for biological residues and microstratigraphy.

The worksite open to the public

An organizational detail distinguishes Calascio from many other campaigns: during the excavations it will be possible to visit the rock shelter and meet archaeologists specializing in prehistory. It is a communication choice that brings visitors inside an ongoing worksite, rather than presenting them with an already packaged result.

What we don’t know

Of Gomolava, we do not know the title of the study or the journal of publication, and the material gathered does not include the identity of the authors: these are elements that would be needed to assess the solidity of the attribution to a single violent event. Of Calascio, we do not know what scientific objectives the 2026 campaign has set itself, nor which areas of the shelter will be investigated.

The two news items share the same degree of verification: both rest on communications from the institutions conducting the research. The verifiable result is, for now, a date — September 26, when the Abruzzo excavation closes — and a count, the seventy-seven individuals in the Serbian grave.