Archaeologists unearthed a 400-year-old skeleton of a "vampire child" buried in the Polish village of Pień this week, according to multiple sources.
The child, who archaeologists think was between the ages of five and seven at the time of their death, was buried face down with a padlock on their foot - a practice that was believed to prevent him to rise from the dead.
"The padlock shows people were afraid of this child after its death," archaeologist Dariusz Poliński told Live Science.
He added that this is the first time a child was found buried like this as the practice was usually used on adults.
The graveyard where the child was found was outside of the confines of the church graveyard. Poliński told Live Science that people buried in this area were either not wealthy enough for the churchyard or were buried their because they were "abandoned souls."
Child isn't the only 'vampire' buried there
This is also the same area where a "vampire woman" was found buried last year, but Poliński noted that the term vampire was only coined later and wasn't used at the time they were buried.
Like the child, the woman found last year was buried with a padlock on her toe, but unlike the newer case, she had a sickle placed across her neck.
"All the features here indicate that this was a graveyard for the excluded, for those who should be forgotten”.
Dariusz Poliński
“The main meaning of this site is that we can learn more about [what] the main traditions and customs were for the context of treating people who were ‘different’, yes, and excluding people who were different," Poliński told IFL Science. “So all the features here indicate that this was a graveyard for the excluded, for those who should be forgotten”.
This same burial practice has also been seen in other areas in Eastern Europe and seems to indicate that people in the area generally feared that their loved ones may rise from the dead and haunt them.
The child's skeleton will now be moved to Nicholas Copernicus University in Torun for further testing.