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Judi Lynn

(162,437 posts)
Sat Jun 10, 2023, 06:13 AM Jun 2023

Amazing new archaeological wonders unearthed near Stonehenge


Story by Talker News • Yesterday 9:29 AM

By Dean Murray via SWNS

Workers on a housing development in Harnham, England have uncovered items that could date back to 10,000 BC.
The finds, which include pottery and knives, are just eight miles south of the world-famous prehistoric monument.

Cotswold Archaeology had worked with developers Vistry Group on the recent excavation and, amongst other archaeological features, the team has uncovered five Bronze Age barrows (circa 2400 BC – 700 BC) spread across two excavation areas.

There are also ten burials, three cremation burials, Iron Age lynchets, a large number of pits and postholes – dating from the Neolithic and Late Bronze Age – plus pottery, knives and red deer antler.

More:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/amazing-new-archaeological-wonders-unearthed-near-stonehenge/ar-AA1clhTC
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Warpy

(113,131 posts)
4. Sounds like a nearby village that predated Stonehenge,
Sun Jun 11, 2023, 02:22 PM
Jun 2023

quite possibly supplied some of the workers to construct it, and kept going for a long time afterward.

I do wonder about the burials. There aren't enough of them to account for 9300 years of even intermittent occupation.

sybylla

(8,655 posts)
5. It's been a long time since I studied the developments at Stonehenge, but....
Mon Jun 12, 2023, 07:44 AM
Jun 2023

I was under the impression that burial was rare at that time and that most deceased were either pyred or left in open air to decompose.

I don't think there would have been many burials to find. Aren't the burials at Stonehenge thought to be sacrificial or prominent individuals?

Warpy

(113,131 posts)
6. I think they were. Ancient people considered death a long process
Mon Jun 12, 2023, 03:34 PM
Jun 2023

that ended when there was nothing left of the deceased but bones. Open air burial did that very efficiently, scavengers making quick work of reducing a body to bones. Sometimes the bones were collected but most of the time, the people simply moved on to the next camp site, allowing the bones to be widely scattered and weathered down to nothing.

I remember how shocked they were when they went over the area inside and around Stonehenge with sensors and found so few burials. They found evidence of rare executions, but no corresponding graves. Digging graves, even small kist graves for bones, was hard and unnecessary work for most people, probably reserved for either the most important people or the biggest scoundrels, the kist burial keeping their spirits trapped and unable to keep causing trouble. Who knows? They probably told us, but the long oral tradition was lost.

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