Rewriting Stonehenge History
Archaeologists have found that the original Stonehenge was a graveyard for a
community of elite families built 500 years earlier than the site we know
today.
The new discovery has finally solved many of the mysteries
surrounding Stonehenge , overturning the accepted view on
construction and use of our greatest prehistoric monument. These new findings
will be revealed for the first time in a special Channel 4 documentary screened
on Sunday night (8pm 10 March).
The British team, which was led by Professor Parker
Pearson (UCL Institute of Archaeology), analysed the
ancient remains of 63 bodies buried around Stonehenge , finding that the
first monument was originally a graveyard for a community of elite families,
whose remains were brought to Stonehenge and buried over a
period of more than 200 years.
“The first Stonehenge began its life as a
huge graveyard,” said Professor Parker Pearson. “The original monument was a
large circular enclosure built 500 years before the Stonehenge we know today, with
the remains of many of the cremated bodies originally marked by the bluestones
of Stonehenge . We have also discovered that the second Stonehenge was built 200 years
earlier than thought, around 2500 BC.”
By testing
cattle teeth from 80,000 animal bones excavated from the Stonehenge complex, the team also
found that around 2500 BC it was once the site of vast communal feasts attended
by perhaps up to a tenth of the British population, with people coming from as
far afield as highland Scotland to celebrate the
solstice.
The film
reveals that the animals were slaughtered in the Winter, nine months after
their spring birth, pointing to the Mid-Winter Solstice gatherings at Stonehenge being a time for
feasting on an unprecedented scale.
“Stonehenge was a monument that
brought ancient Britain together,” said
Professor Parker Pearson. “What we’ve found is that people came with their
animals to feast at Stonehenge from all corners of Britain - as far afield as Scotland . Stonehenge was built soon after
the appearance of the first pan-British culture, the only time in prehistory
that the people of Britain were unified.”
For years
the reasons for Stonehenge ’s location have also remained a mystery, but
the team now think that the site was chosen because of a pair of
naturally-occurring parallel ridges in the landscape – the result of Ice Age
meltwater - which coincidentally point directly at the Mid-Winter sunset in one
direction and the Mid-Summer sunrise in the other. To our ancestors, this must
have seemed an uncanny and auspicious sign – and we now know that they chose to
build their cemetery at the end of them.
Once
completed,
“In many
ways our findings are rewriting the established story of Stonehenge ,” said Professor
Parker Pearson. “What we’ve uncovered is compelling evidence that Stonehenge
once united the people of Britain, attracting people from far and wide for
Solstice gatherings, but also that the bodies and grave goods found on and
around the site also offer an answer to the mystery of Stonehenge’s decline.”
0 Comments