The remains were found on the construction site of a ring road near the town of Gliwice, and came as a surprise to archaeologists more accustomed to finding the human detritus of the bloody fighting of the Second World War.  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. The practice of decapitating the bodies of suspected vampires before burial was common in Slavic countries during the early Christian era, when pagan beliefs were still widespread. There's no consensus yet on when the bodies found in Poland were buried. According to Jacek Pierzak, one of the archaeologists on the site, the skeletons were found with no jewelry, belt buckles, buttons or any other artifacts that might assist in providing a burial date.
– No word on whether they kept garlic or a crucifix nearby as they dug, but Polish archaeologists say they've unearthed four "vampire" skeletons. The remains were found with the head placed between their legs; folk tradition held that this burial arrangement would ensure that a possible bloodsucker couldn't find his head and come back to life. Though an archaeologist tells Polskie Radio that "it's very difficult to tell when these burials were carried out" due to their lack of jewelry or other items that could be dated, they likely occurred long before 1914—the date of the last recorded "vampire" burial in the country. The skeletons were found on a construction site near Gliwice, in southern Poland, and tests are being conducted on the remains. The Telegraph goes into greater (and gorier) detail about the ritual, which was said to be common in the Slavic region after the advent of Christianity there: Believed vampires would either be decapitated or hanged until their body naturally fell from the head due to decomposition. LiveScience points out that there were other ways to deal with suspected vampires, like using metal stakes to secure the corpse to the ground. Archaeologists in Bulgaria made just such a discovery last year.