Free Republic

...The new study supports the results of an earlier chemical analysis of the soldiers' teeth. Published last year... the paper found that roughly two-thirds of soldiers who died during the 480 battle were not of Greek origin and that one-fourth of troops who died in 409 were not local to the area...That’s likely because paying soldiers to fight did not fit the prevailing narrative of "heroic Greek armies of citizens and the armored spearmen known as hoplites" rising up to defend Himera that Greek writers wanted to portray, study co-author David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard University, tells the New...

More than 10,000 graves containing ancient amphorae, "baby bottles," and the bodies of soldiers who fought the Carthaginians were found near the ancient Greek colony of Himera, in Italy, archaeologists announced recently... "Each [mass grave] contains from 15 to 25 skeletons. They were all young healthy men and they all died a violent death. Some of the skeletons have broken skulls and in some cases we found the tips of the arrows that killed them," Vassallo said. He thinks the human remains are from soldiers who died fighting the Carthaginians in a famous 480 B.C. battle described by Greek historian...

Archaeologists working at the ancient Greek city of Himera in northern Sicily have uncovered what they now believe to be the largest Greek necropolis on the island... Hundreds of graves have already been uncovered but archaeologists believe there are thousands more waiting to be found in the burial ground of the city, which rose to prominence more than 2,500 years ago. "The necropolis is of an extraordinary beauty and notable dimensions," Sicily's regional councillor for culture, Antonello Antinoro, said Tuesday. "Preliminary estimates indicate the presence of around 10,000 tombs, which gives the site a good claim to being one...