Discovery of mass grave under football pitch changes what we know about the Roman Empire

A man works on the excavation of a Roman mass grave from the end of the 1st century AD, in the Simmering district of Vienna, Austria, Tuesday Nov. 26, 2024. (Reiner Riedler, Wien Museum via AP) - (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Construction workers renovating a Vienna football field stumbled upon a grim piece of history: a mass grave containing the skeletal remains of what are believed to be warriors from the 1st-century Roman Empire.

Unearthed last October, the site has yielded evidence of a brutal battle, likely involving Germanic tribes, marking the first known conflict in the region.