They didn't resemble the blood-sucking cinematic creations of "Twilight" or "Dracula," but vampires — or at least the mythology surrounding them — have haunted people's nightmares for centuries, even dictating how villagers long ago buried their dead.
Archeological digs over the past decades have unearthed remains of several so-called vampire burials, which researchers believe showcase ancient techniques people once used to stop the dead from returning from the grave.
This practice, seen across the world, was most notable between the 14th century and the 17th century in Europe, Matteo Borrini, a forensic anthropologist at Liverpool John Moores University, told Insider last year. But unusual burial practices associated with the belief have been spotted as early as the 5th century in ancient Rome.
These "vampiric" outbreaks have been associated with times people inexplicably died in droves, for instance when epidemics such as the plague swept through an area.
The common fear was these "vampires" would hunt and kill their family members first, and then move on to neighbors and others in the village, tracking with our modern understanding of how contagious diseases spread, Borrini told Insider.
Whether or not a unique burial technique is necessarily tied to "vampirism" per se can be a matter of debate among experts, Borrini said. Still, they are generally thought to have been motivated by superstitions or folklore that lead people to believe the dead could haunt the living.
These are nine techniques researchers have posited were meant to keep "vampires" in their graves for good.