THE secrets of a gruesome discovery in the North York Moors National Park are to be revealed on television.

The BBC’s History Cold Case programme will focus on the story of a number of skeletons, believed to date back to the end of the last century BC to the early 2nd Century, discovered in an area of the park known as the Ryedale Windypits.

The tale was pieced together by forensic anthropologists from the University of Dundee, and the programme will air on Thursday, at 9pm, on BBC2.

The Windypits are a series of underground limestone fissure caves on the southern edge of the Moors, with several being designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest, and the discovery of the skeletons has baffled experts for many years.

Fracture marks on the bones consistent with suspicious deaths led to the conclusion the victims did not die naturally.

Graham Lee, the National Park Authority’s senior archaeological conservation officer, who was interviewed for the programme, said: “Little is known about the origins of the skeletons and how they came to be there.

“Having the insight and research from the team at History Cold Case will give us a greater understanding of what the Windypits were used for by our ancestors.”