Author: Bruce Bower / Source: Science News
Stonehenge attracted the dead from far beyond its location in southern England.
A new analysis of cremated human remains interred at the iconic site between around 5,000 and 4,400 years ago provides the first glimpse of who was buried there.
Some were outsiders who probably spent the last decade or so of their lives in what’s now West Wales, more than 200 kilometers west of Stonehenge, researchers report August 2 in Scientific Reports.West Wales was the source of rocks known as bluestones used in early stages of constructing Stonehenge. Bluestones are smaller than the ancient monument’s massive sandstone boulders.
The new investigation “adds detail to a previously rather shaky framework” of archaeological finds suggesting that links existed among ancient societies across southern England and Wales, says archaeologist Timothy Darvill of Bournemouth University in Poole, England, who was not involved in the research.
Geographic origins of cremated remains at the site had previously eluded scientists. In the new study, bioarchaeologist Christophe Snoeck of Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium and colleagues analyzed two forms of the element strontium in human skull fragments that were previously found among cremated remains at Stonehenge to narrow down individuals’ origins. Signature levels of these strontium types characterize rock formations and soil in different regions. Humans and other animals incorporate strontium into their bones and teeth by eating plants.
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