A HEADLESS man buried in a shallow grave in Broad Town could well have been executed.

But this is one mystery which won't be troubling Wiltshire Constabulary. Broad Town Man, as he has become known, died around the year 560 AD.

Carbon-dating at Oxford University has now pin-pointed the age of the skeleton discovered in September, 2000, by a couple who spotted pieces of bone jutting out of a hill.

Archeaologist Bob Clarke revealed this and other discoveries about the mystery man to a rapt lecture hall in the University of Bath's Oakfield campus in Swindon last night. Oakfield's growing archaeology deparment paid for the carbon-dating, which according to Bob Clarke, reveals Broad Town Man to be an extremely important discovery. Buried at a crossing between two ancient tracks, and at the top of a hill, the burial point is thought to mark the edge of a Saxon district or Hundred. Thanks to the carbon-dating, it effectively puts a date on the founding of the Saxon settlement of Broad Town.

Mr Clarke said: "It provides evidence that there were settlements there at this time otherwise there wouldn't have been a boundary there.

"It's extremely important because we date this boundary by looking at this burial. It puts us some way towards building up a picture of this piece of land."

Although he is headless, Broad Town Man is not thought to have been decapitated. His skull and arm were probably worn away by soil erosion.

He was 35 to 45 years old, 5ft 7in, and did a lot of riding, indicated by the size of the muscle attachments on his legs. The Saxons often buried suicides and criminals at crossroads but, according to Bob Clarke, we may never be sure how the man died.

He said: "The fact that he was found with nothing with him would suggest that he was of criminal status. And also the fact that he is buried in such a prominent position, on a hill-top it's a good deterrent."

That it was a shallow grave, only 25cm deep, also indicates he may have been a criminal.

Mr Clarke said one thing we do know for sure is that Broad Town Man wasn't garrotted (the practice of hanging an executed man up in a cage for a number of weeks).

He said if this was the case he would be missing toes, or even feet, which would have been eaten off my wild animals.

Further analysis is planned of Broad Town Man which should shed more light on the mystery. Hi-tech methods may be able to reveal whether he was Briton, Roman or Saxon in origin.