Isle of Whithorn harbour. Shane’s research suggests that human sacrifice may have taken place at the island’s monastic site in the tenth century
A new article by Shane McLeod published in the Journal of the Australian Early Medieval Association (vol. 14, 2018) investigates ‘the certain and possible examples of human sacrifice during the Viking Age in Britain and Ireland’. Along with looking at sites from England, Ireland and the Isle of Man, it includes a suggestion that human sacrifice took place at the monastic site at Whithorn in c.900 CE.
During extensive excavations led by Peter Hill between 1984 and 1991, a group of three probable Viking burials – two adults and an infant – were discovered. After burial, these graves were covered by a layer of the cremated remains of at least four people. As cremation was a decidedly non-christian practice at the time, this discovery at a monastery is highly unusual. Drawing parallels with the layers of sacrificed cremated animal remains over Viking burial mounds on the Isle of Man, it is suggested that the cremation layer at Whithorn contains the remains of human sacrifice victims, placed over the Viking burials to commemorate them and mark their location.