28 'carefully placed' horses in ancient burial in France may have been part of a sacrificial ritual

An aerial view of a excavation site containing horse skeletons.

An aerial view of the excavation site that includes pits containing mass burials of horses. (Image credit: François Goulin, Inrap)

Archaeologists in France have discovered ancient pits containing the skeletal remains of more than two dozen stallions, which may have been part of a sacrificial ritual.

The 3-acre (1.2 hectares) excavation site, located in a valley near the commune of Villedieu-sur-Indre in central France, dates to sometime between the fifth and sixth centuries. It includes several buildings and ditches, as well as a grouping of nine pits, according to a translated statement from the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research.

So far, archaeologists have excavated two of the pits, which contain the remains of a total of 28 horses. The stallions were "carefully placed" on their right sides, with their heads facing south, and were "organized in two rows and on two levels," according to the statement. Based on this positioning, the researchers determined that all of the horses were buried at the same time in an "extraordinary" burial.

Radiocarbon dating shows that the animals died sometime between 100 B.C. and A.D. 100. Because the horses are small — roughly 3 feet (1 meter) tall — researchers suspect the animals were Gallic livestock. All of the horse skeletons are from adult males.

One pit also contained a pair of medium-size adult dogs that were buried with their heads facing west. Archaeologists are unsure of the animals' cause of death, but they hypothesized that the horses and dogs may have been part of a sacrificial ritual.