New Research

Construction in Austria Revealed a Roman-Era Mass Grave Beneath a Soccer Field. New Research Suggests That the Men’s Enemies Targeted Their ‘Sensitive Areas’

No written records mention a fight in this specific part of Vienna at the time of the men’s deaths. But the brutal nature of their injuries, particularly to the pelvis area, indicates that these individuals died on the battlefield

Meilan Solly | Senior Associate Digital Editor, History

August 20, 2026 11:06 a.m.

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In October 2024, a construction crew renovating a soccer field in Austria’s capital stumbled upon a mass grave dated to the late first or early second century C.E., during the city’s Roman era. An initial assessment of the burial suggested that it held the remains of up to 150 young men, many of whom suffered violent deaths. Now, researchers have cataloged the ancient skeletons’ injuries in detail, revealing the damage inflicted in the men’s final moments by arrows, swords and other weapons.

Sheridan Strang, a bioarchaeologist at the Vienna-based archaeology company Novetus, announced the findings at a recent meeting of the Paleopathology Association. According to a session overview, no fewer than 128 men between the ages of 20 and 35 were buried at the site, “interred with a lack of care or under time pressure,” likely in the aftermath of a battle.

At least 48 of the skeletons showed signs of physical trauma, with the vast majority of injuries sustained around the time of death. Trauma to the pelvic area was the most common type of injury observed by Strang and her colleagues. Sharp force wounds, meanwhile, were generally concentrated on the men’s skulls.

“We have one individual where the lance head was still inside the pelvis when we excavated him,” Strang tells Live Science’s Kristina Killgrove. “The people who caused these injuries were aiming for these sensitive areas.”

The sheer number and diverse nature of the men’s injuries “rule out the possibility of executions, such as a punishment for military cowardice,” the Vienna Museum noted in a 2025 statement. “Instead, everything points to the catastrophic end of a military operation.” Objects found in the burial on Hasenleitengasse, a street on Vienna’s outskirts, further support this theory. They include an iron dagger, scale armor and a piece of a helmet.

In ancient times, Vienna was home to a Roman military base called Vindobona. The region enjoyed a period of relative peace between 50 and 120 C.E., city archaeologist Martin Mosser told Andrea Ruscher, a reporter for the Vienna Museum’s magazine, in 2025. But written sources suggest that Germanic groups crossed the Danube River into Roman territory in 92 C.E., taking out an entire imperial legion.

Could the men buried in the mass grave be casualties of this clash? Scholars can’t say for sure. Although they know that battles also took place near Vindobona during the Marcomannic Wars, which spanned roughly 166 to 180 C.E., no records of ancient skirmishes in this specific part of Vienna match up exactly with the group burial.

“These individuals may have been Roman military personnel,” Strang tells Live Science. “But they might not all be Romans. There’s a chance that it is a commingled grave, with Romans and another Germanic tribe.”

The mass grave offers rare physical evidence of injuries sustained by soldiers fighting during Rome’s imperial era. Until the third century, cremation was the norm for Roman war dead and everyday citizens alike, making it difficult for modern-day archaeologists to recover battlefield burials.

“Within the context of Roman acts of war, there are no comparable finds of fighters,” Michaela Binder, leader of the archaeological dig, told the Associated Press’ Philipp Jenne in 2025. “There are huge battlefields in Germany where weapons were found. But finding the dead, that is unique for the entire Roman history.”

Strang’s work has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, and research on the skeletons is ongoing. But David Potter, a historian at the University of Michigan who isn’t involved in the project, posited that the mass grave reflects “a Roman defeat and a burial of troops after the fact.” As he told the New York Times’ Eve Sampson in 2025, “You get a sense for the nature of battle from the injuries that these poor people have sustained.” At Vindobona, Potter added, “the other side had a lot of big clubs.”

Meilan Solly is a senior associate digital editor at Smithsonian magazine, where she oversees the online history section and writes about everything from archaeology to the British royal family. Solly’s specialties are Tudor England, Renaissance and modern art, and World War II.