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An ancient Swedish fort is beginning to relinquish a dark secret it has held for 1500 years 鈥� that its walls bore witness to a brutal massacre. Although it鈥檚 unclear exactly what motivated the apparently merciless attack, it was probably linked to the chaos that swept across northern Europe following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.

on the island of O虉land was an impressive ringfort in the late 5^th century. Its walls stood 5 metres tall and enclosed a 5000-square-metre area that contained about 50 dwellings. Archaeological work began in 2010, but the ringfort is so rich in ancient finds that to date only about 6 per cent of the site has been excavated.

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Those excavations are revealing an extraordinary picture of violence and disorder. The remains of at least 26 individuals of all ages 鈥� including a baby and a young child 鈥� have been unearthed in the ringfort鈥檚 houses and streets. Many show signs of violent injury. They were seemingly slaughtered by invaders and left where they fell.

鈥淲e anticipate that more bodies will be found,鈥� says at Kalmar County Museum, Sweden. 鈥淲e鈥檝e estimated that a fully inhabited fort of this size would have housed some 150-250 people. The total death toll may well be around those figures.鈥�

Papmehl-Dufay and his colleagues have also discovered valuables scattered around the site, including exquisite gold and silver artefacts and the remains of livestock. This suggests that the attackers weren鈥檛 opportunistic plunderers and may have had other motivations for their actions.

For the moment those motives remain unclear. But it may be no coincidence that Sandby borg was attacked just decades after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

Although Scandinavia was always beyond Rome鈥檚 direct influence, it didn鈥檛 escape the shift in power dynamics that resulted from the empire鈥檚 collapse. Ringforts like Sandby borg might have emerged as seats of local power, according to Papmehl-Dufay鈥檚 team, making them prominent targets for attack by others with ambitions to rule.

It would be cruelly apt if the fall of the Western Roman Empire led to violence in northern Europe 鈥� because the rise of Rome centuries earlier also did so.

Scenes of mass violence became far more common across the region from about 200 BC, says at Aarhus University in Denmark. 鈥淥ne of the reasons we begin to see these scenes is because of the pressure from the expansion of Rome, which led to local conflicts.鈥�

This might give the impression that the rise of Rome left northern Europe in a perpetual state of chaos.

But in a paper published in February, L酶vschal and her colleague argued that northern Europe鈥檚 mass conflicts quickly took on a religious significance. This suggests they helped maintain an uneasy social order ().

After battles or massacres, the dead and their weapons were often carefully treated in a way that might have impressed and intimidated locals, and discouraged insurrection. For instance, at one site in France there is evidence that . 鈥淚t was an army of death that decayed over several generations,鈥� says L酶vschal.

Such rituals were generally less macabre in Scandinavia. Typically, the weapons of war were collected and deposited in marshy bogs. However, L酶vschal and Holst argue these 鈥渨ar bogs鈥� were still sites of powerful symbolic significance that helped governing elites stay in control.

The Sandby borg massacre doesn鈥檛 seem to belong to that governing tradition, says L酶vschal. Livestock and other valuables at the ringfort were not sacrificed or ritually treated, but simply abandoned. The ringfort鈥檚 walls and houses eventually collapsed, burying the dead exactly as they had fallen. As such, the massacre might be evidence that northern Europe鈥檚 governing elites had lost influence and control, following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.

鈥淭he fact that the victims were not buried, and seemingly not manipulated at all after the massacre, actually seems to be highly unusual,鈥� says Papmehl-Dufay. This lack of treatment suggests the massacre broke accepted social conventions in some way, he says.