The Telegraph reports:
Skeletons were found with their heads removed and placed on their legs indicating they had been subjected to an execution ritual designed to ensure the dead stayed dead.
Anybody accused of being a vampire in the distant past faced a grim fate.
Sometimes they would be decapitated, while another punishment involved hanging from a gibbet until decomposition resulted in the head separating from the body. In both cases the head was then laid on the legs of the victim in the hope that an inability to locate their head would hinder the progress of those intent on rising from the grave.
Historians say that the practice was common in the Slavic lands during the decades following the adoption of Christianity by pagan tribes.
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