Techotic

Archaeologists at the University of Sheffield has been excavating the ancient monument Stonehenge revealed it was used as a burial ground around 3000 BC. It was thought that up to 240 cremation deposits were buried within Stonehenge.

“It’s now clear that burials were a major component of Stonehenge in all its main stages,” said Mike Parker Pearson, archaeology professor at the University of Sheffield, whose team has been excavating the Wiltshire site.

“Stonehenge was a place of burial from its beginning to its zenith in the mid third millennium BC.

“The cremation burial dating to Stonehenge’s sarsen stones (the larger stones) phase is likely just one of many from this later period of the monument’s use and demonstrates that it was still very much a domain of the dead.”

The earliest cremation burial dated - a small pile of burned bones and teeth - came from a pit around Stonehenge’s edge known as the Aubrey Holes and dates to 3030-2880 BC.

The second burial, from the ditch surrounding Stonehenge, is that of an adult and dates to 2930-2870 BC.

The most recent cremation, Professor Parker Pearson said, came from the ditch’s northern side and was of a 25-year-old woman.

This dates from 2570-2340 B.C, around the time the first arrangements of sarsen stones appeared at Stonehenge.

Another 49 cremation burials were dug up at Stonehenge during the 1920s, but all were put back in the ground because they were thought to be of no scientific value.

Watch the Stonehenge video here:

[via bbc news]