Posted on 05/21/2003 4:39:06 PM PDT by blam
Six More Bodies Found Near ‘King of Stonehenge’ Site
By Stuart Coles, PA News
Archaeologists have discovered six more bodies near the grave of the so-called “King of Stonehenge”, it was announced today.
The remains of four adults and two children were found at a site in Amesbury, Wiltshire.
It was about half-a-mile from that of the Amesbury Archer, the Bronze Age man who was buried with the earliest gold found in Britain. He was dubbed by the media as King of Stonehenge – so-called because it is thought he might have had a major role in creating Stonehenge. Tests showed he was born in the Alps region in central Europe.
The latest bones discovered are some 4,500 years old the same age as the Archer, said Salisbury-based Wessex Archaeology which excavated the site during the digging of a trench for a new water pipe early this month.
Radiocarbon tests will be done to find out more precise dates for the burials but the people are believed to have lived during the building of Stonehenge.
Wessex Archaeology said it is possible the bones are those of people from different generations, as the grave seems to have been reopened to allow further burials to be made. The bones of the earlier burials were mixed up but those of the later burials, a man and a child, were undisturbed.
They said the grave, which is about three miles from Stonehenge, had narrowly missed being damaged by trench digging for electric cables and a water pipe.
The grave contained four pots in the Beaker style that is typical of the period, some flint tools, one flint arrowhead and a bone toggle for fastening clothing.
Dr Andrew Fitzpatrick. of Wessex Archaeology, said: “This new find is really unusual. It is exceptionally rare to find the remains of so many people in one grave like this in southern England.
The number of Beaker pots in the grave, four, is only exceeded by the grave of the Amesbury Archer, where there were five.
“The grave is fascinating because we are seeing the moment when Britain was moving from the Stone Age into the Bronze Age, around 2,300BC.
The large number of bodies placed in this grave is something more commonly found in the Stone Age, but the Beaker style pottery is found in Bronze Age burials.
The new discovery was found almost exactly a year after the Amesbury Archer was found during excavation for a housing scheme at Boscombe Down, Amesbury, three miles from Stonehenge.
His grave was the richest found in Britain from its time, containing about 100 items, more than ten times as many objects as any other burial site from this time, and included hair tresses that are the earliest gold in the country.
Yup. A ship ten miles from Krakatoa survived....it's also called the loudest sound ever heard by humans. The year with out summer.
Don't give up hope. You're not to far from Lake Jackson.
Skeletal Remains May Be 11,000 Year Old (Lake Jackson, Texas)
I read a book called "The Fall of Berlin" recently. In Germany- they still find at least 1000 bodies among the pine woods of the "Seelow Heights" (the last real defensive line on the outskirts of Berlin).
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Eh. A housing scheme.
Britain has done a wonderful job of protecting its countryside and not crapping it up with modern "housing schemes." They're under serious population pressures to change that.
it woud seem that your old flower garden was on a old trashpit.
It was actually a nick-name, not as widely believed, a surname.
He suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome, from over-training with the sword as a young boy.
That caused ulner nerve damge. As a result, his hand drooped, and it also caused him to have problems with his grip, and especially, use of his thumb.
When he wrote, he could not hold a quill properly, resulting in his pen dragging across the parchment.
The other nobles' sons mocked him, naming him "Pen-Dragging" Uther.
In the accented speech of the day, this became Uther, Pendrag'n.
There is also a bawdy story that seems to explain it, but it has generally been discredited.
I had been wondering...
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