In a very gruesome turn of events recently, researchers found a very rare finding in northeast China — an ancient house stuffed with 97 cadavers of people from different age groups.

According to Live Science, the shocking discovery was made in a 5,000-year-old house that's situated in a Chinese prehistoric village.

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Researchers described their gruesome find in two separate papers, but for the most part, they noted that the bodies that were found belonged to juveniles, middle-age adults and young adults.

What's even more striking about this discovery is the fact that all of the remains were stuffed into a house that's only as big as a modern-day squash court.

Scientists now believe that the bodies belonged to people who may have had been infected by a "prehistoric disaster" — a yet to be identified epidemic.

Speaking of the rare find, the archaeologists noted in their study published in Chinese Archaeology that the remains matched the age of the bodies discovered in the Miaozigou region that were subjected to an ancient mass burial. Because of this, the archaeologists said that the early people didn't have sufficient time to conduct proper burials and simply resorted to stacking the bodies in one place.

Describing the house, the team of researchers said that it was only about 20 square meters. They also revealed that they found the numerous remains scattered on the floor of the ancient house that they has since dubbed "F40."

Nevertheless, the house reportedly burnt down at some point, with the fire consuming the wooden beams of the roof leading to a collapse. This is evident in the deformities noticeable in some skulls and limb bones that were also charred to a certain extent.

"The skeletons in the northwest are relatively complete, while those in the east often [have] only skulls, with limb bones scarcely remaining. But in the south, limb bones were discovered in a mess, forming two or three layers," the archaeologists noted in their study.

Despite the gruesome discovery, Newser noted that the Hamin Mangha, as per the researchers, is still the "best-preserved prehistoric settlement" in northeast China.

TagsAncient China, Cadavers, Human Bodies