Prevalent belief in old Poland was that a person dying from an infectious disease outbreak was more likely to return from the dead as a vampire

Six suspected vampires buried with rocks and sickles to prevent them returning from the dead may have been victims of cholera, scientists claim.

The bones were discovered in a cemetery in northwest Poland, where belief in vampires was rife in the 17th and 18th centuries.

In each of the unusual graves, either a sickle had been placed across the body or a large rock under its chin. The practice was a known traditional funeral rite carried out to ward off evil.

Tests on the skeletons’ molars suggested the feared individuals were local and not migrants from outside the region.

The manner of their death probably marked them out for suspicion, said the researchers. Lead scientist Lesley Gregoricka, from the University of South Alabama, said the cholera epidemics that were common in eastern Europe during the 17th century might offer a clue.

A prevalent belief at the time was that the first person to die from an infectious disease outbreak was more likely to return from the dead as a vampire.

“People of the post-medieval period did not understand how disease was spread, and rather than a scientific explanation for these epidemics, cholera and the deaths that resulted from it were explained by the supernatural – in this case, vampires,” said Gregoricka.

The research is published in the online journal Public Library of Science One.