UCLA’s Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Showcases 'Death Pit' at Open House May 5

In south-central Turkey, the locals call the earthen mound Domuztepe, Turkish for pig hill. But a team of UCLA and University of Manchester archaeologists know that the former stomping grounds of wild boar had a less bucolic past — thanks to the discovery of a mass burial site they call the "death pit."

Between 1997 and 2002, the team painstakingly excavated the remains of more than 40 decapitated and dismembered people who met their end some 7,500 years ago. Although the mound is one of earliest mass burial sites ever discovered, the archaeologists still aren't sure what they have on their hands.