Stonehenge was a place of burial, researchers say (AP/CNN)

[eppur_se_muova]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- England's enigmatic Stonehenge served as a burial ground from its earliest beginnings and for several hundred years thereafter, new research indicates.

Dating of cremated remains shows burials took place as early as 3000 B.C., when the first ditches around the monument were being built, researchers said Thursday.

And those burials continued for at least 500 years, when the giant stones that mark the mysterious circle were being erected, they said.

"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 in England and head of the Stonehenge Riverside Archaeological Project.

In the past, many archaeologists had thought that burials at Stonehenge continued for only about a century, the researchers said.
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more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/05/29/stonehenge.ap/index.html

[bananas]

1. Maybe they were burying the workers crushed by the stones? nt

[HeresyLives]

3. That makes sense to me

It was a community after all, and they'd bury anyone who died onsite, nearby.

[Posteritatis]

4. It'd be pretty obvious from the remains if someone got intimate with those things, though

Though yeah, it could be workers who'd died for any number of reasons. Life expectancy wasn't exactly stellar anytime before the nineteenth century, and a lot of those original cultures would often bury people not far from where they fell for whatever reason.

[pokerfan]

5. Possible

but I think it had more significance than that.

"I don't think it was the common people getting buried at Stonehenge; it was clearly a special place at that time. One has to assume anyone buried there had some good credentials."

Sounds like it may have been a special burial place. Damned shame they didn't inscribe anything on those stones.

The village also included a circle of wooden pillars, which they have named the Southern Circle. It is oriented toward the midwinter sunrise, the opposite of Stonehenge, which is oriented to the midsummer sunrise.

That I did not know.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. All those drummers

:evilgrin:

--p!