Thread: Stonehenge “a long-term cemetery”

Thursday 29 May 2008

Stonehenge “a long-term cemetery”

Stonehenge served as a burial ground for much longer than had previously been believed, new research suggests.

Under the traditional view, cremation burials were dug at the site between 2700 BC and 2600 BC, about a century before the large stones – known as sarsens – were put in place.

Professor Mike Parker Pearson, from the department of archaeology at the University of Sheffield, and his colleagues have now carried out radiocarbon dating of burials excavated in the 1950s that were kept at the nearby Salisbury Museum.

Their results suggest burials took place at the site from the initiation of Stonehenge, just after 3000 BC, until the time the large stones appear at about 2500 BC.

Full story: BBC News

I finished a Web site for a client two weeks ago, who is also claiming "Stonehenge Solved", in this case, as a lunar observatory.

I love the image of Stonehenge on their home page by English artist, John Constable, which looks somewhat different to Stonehenge as we know it today.