Researchers have virtually reconstructed the face of a man who was decapitated after his death almost 2,000 years ago and then buried near a Roman military fort in Scotland.

While it's unclear why the man was beheaded, other burials hundreds of miles away may offer a clue. A chemical analysis of the man's remains suggests that he grew up in southern Britain. Beheading bodies may have been an obscure burial rite for some southern Britons, as other headless bodies from about the same time have been found in that region, John H. Reid, an archaeologist at the Trimontium Trust who was not involved in the excavations, told Live Science.