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Stonehenge boy 'was from the Med'
BBC ^ | 28 Sep 2010 | Paul Rincon

Posted on 09/28/2010 3:45:43 PM PDT by Palter

Chemical tests on teeth from an ancient burial near Stonehenge indicate that the person in the grave grew up around the Mediterranean Sea.

The bones belong to a teenager who died 3,550 years ago and was buried with a distinctive amber necklace.

The conclusions come from analysis of different forms of the elements oxygen and strontium in his tooth enamel.

Analysis on a previous skeleton found near Stonehenge showed that that person was also a migrant to the area.

The findings will be discussed at a science symposium in London to mark the 175th anniversary of the British Geological Survey (BGS).

The "Boy with the Amber Necklace", as he is known to archaeologists, was found in 2005, about 5km south-east of Stonehenge on Boscombe Down.

The remains of the teenager were discovered next to a Bronze Age burial mound, during roadworks for military housing.

"He's around 14 or 15 years old and he's buried with this beautiful necklace," said Professor Jane Evans, head of archaeological science for the BGS.

"The position of his burial, the fact he's near Stonehenge, and the necklace all suggest he's of significant status."

Dr Andrew Fitzpatrick, of Wessex Archaeology, backed this interpretation: "Amber necklaces are not common finds," he told BBC News.

"Most archaeologists would say that when you find burials like this... people who can get these rare and exotic materials are people of some importance."

Chemical record

Professor Evans likened Stonehenge in the Bronze Age to Westminster Abbey today - a place where the "great and the good" were buried.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: archaeoastronomy; england; godsgravesglyphs; mediterranean; megaliths; stonehenge; trade
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1 posted on 09/28/2010 3:45:48 PM PDT by Palter
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To: SunkenCiv

Club Med, ping.


2 posted on 09/28/2010 3:46:28 PM PDT by Palter (If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it. ~ Mark Twain)
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To: Palter

Most likely Roman. They did not surrender to Islam like the English.


3 posted on 09/28/2010 3:50:01 PM PDT by Frantzie (Imam Ob*m* & Democrats support the VICTORY MOSQUE & TV supports Imam)
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To: Palter

People in the ancient world traveled in an age without passports or currency exchanges.

It shouldn’t be that surprising.


4 posted on 09/28/2010 3:51:24 PM PDT by Del Rapier
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To: Frantzie

Of course neither Islam nor Rome existed 3550 years ago.


5 posted on 09/28/2010 3:54:00 PM PDT by wideminded
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To: wideminded

No kidding. In the last 1,000 years Italy, Greece, Germany, Poland, Austria did the heavy lifting.

The UK let the BBC, Blair, Murdoch and the Saudis destroy Great Britain without firing a shot.


6 posted on 09/28/2010 3:56:36 PM PDT by Frantzie (Imam Ob*m* & Democrats support the VICTORY MOSQUE & TV supports Imam)
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To: Frantzie

Rome was established before Islam was a gleam in some demon’s eye...and they occupied all of England before Mohammed had raped his first little boy.


7 posted on 09/28/2010 3:57:06 PM PDT by SonOfDarkSkies (Is Obama the Twelfth Imam? Farrakhan thinks he is!)
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To: Frantzie

Romans weren’t around 3500 years ago and Rome could never have surrendered to Islam.

Rome fell in 476AD and Islam was founded around 610AD.


8 posted on 09/28/2010 3:57:43 PM PDT by Anitius Severinus Boethius
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To: SonOfDarkSkies

I know. The Romans built pretty much everything in the UK.


9 posted on 09/28/2010 4:03:54 PM PDT by Frantzie (Imam Ob*m* & Democrats support the VICTORY MOSQUE & TV supports Imam)
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To: Palter

Chemical tests on fabric from an ancient burial near Stonehenge indicate that the person in the grave grew up around the Mediterranean Sea due to spaghetti sauce residue
found on his shirt.


10 posted on 09/28/2010 4:11:18 PM PDT by bunkerhill7
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To: Frantzie
Yeah, all those Norman castles and Tudor mansions and Victorian.... no.... wait a minute.
11 posted on 09/28/2010 4:12:21 PM PDT by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
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To: Frantzie
3,550 years ago the people who would become the Romans were still huddled in caves picking each other's lice.

This makes the kid, as far as kids go and early patriarchs go, a near contemporary of Father Abraham, one way or the other by a couple of hundred years.

Islam was nowhere around in those days.

Still, the Phoenicians knew where Brittain was by that time, as did the people who lived along the coast of what is now called Portugual.

The amber almost certainly comes from Scandinavia although other minor deposits are known. At that time no Indo-Europeans lived in Scandinavia, so this would likely have started out as a direct trade by the Sa'ami to one of the more primitive tribes in the European interior ~ maybe the proto-Germans or proto-Celts, who would have traded it over the years, back and forth, until it ended up around the Black Sea becoming a trophy for some wealthy Mediterranean trader.

12 posted on 09/28/2010 4:15:32 PM PDT by muawiyah ("GIT OUT THE WAY" The Republicans are coming)
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To: Palter
Thor Heyerdahl has long surmised that “stone age” man was much more well traveled and an accomplished seaman than anybody is STILL willing to give them credit for.

It seems the evidence keeps piling up.

To me it seems that if every possibly human habitable island on the planet pretty much has and has had human habitation for long ages - people got around.

In the famous case of the mutiny on the Bounty, their hope was a small island that some English sailor thought he saw once but wasn't drawn on any maps. They got there and damned if there were not people already on it!

13 posted on 09/28/2010 4:16:22 PM PDT by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
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To: Anitius Severinus Boethius
Rome fell in 476AD and Islam was founded around 610AD.

Of course, Constantinople, the capital of the successor of the Roman Empire, did fall to the Turks.
14 posted on 09/28/2010 4:18:12 PM PDT by kenavi (What drove BP to drill 5,000 feet down?)
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To: muawiyah
The famous “amber road”, but long before that!

Interesting point about the Sa’ami and Indo-Europeans.

I read an interesting thing that attempted to ‘reconstruct’ Indo-European culture from the words in common from Ireland to India (minor exceptions aside). Lots of words for sheep, horses, and the parts to a chariot (axle, wheel, etc); thus they surmised that they most likely rode horses, herded sheep, and had chariots.

15 posted on 09/28/2010 4:19:59 PM PDT by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
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To: Anitius Severinus Boethius
The Eastern Roman Empire fell in the early 1400s after having been totally supplanted by Islamicized Turks (see: Ottoman Empire)

One of the most negative consequences of the contact between Islam and the Eastern Roman Empire was the Moslem adoption of a form of government popular among the Romans ~ the "emperor" or "dictator". Sharia law, right up to 1000 AD or thereabouts when "the book was closed" drew heavily from the worst elements of Eastern law.

To a considerable degree the Ottoman Empire and the Roman Empire had the same faults for the same reasons.

The Western Empire technically "fell" in the 400s, but that was simply a change in dynasty since the replacements sought to preserve the Western Empire.

The Dark Ages happened with a bang in the mid 500s and had NOTHING to do with wandering bands of savages!

16 posted on 09/28/2010 4:22:07 PM PDT by muawiyah ("GIT OUT THE WAY" The Republicans are coming)
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To: bunkerhill7

Impossible. Tomatoes are a New World plant. Couldn’t have happened pre-Columbus. Oh, you were kidding? Never mind.


17 posted on 09/28/2010 4:24:53 PM PDT by DryFly
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To: allmendream
Here's the deal on the words about the parts of chariots, horses were pretty small, and although they'd been domesticated for several thousand years (somewhere ~ maybe several 'somewheres") they weren't big enough for a man to ride.

Consequently they'd hook up a couple of horses to a chariot and you could pull two men in battle ~ although those same two men would be too big for the horses to ride, and would wear out quickly.

Later, through adroit use of animal husbandry (eat the small ones, breed the big ones) horses got big enough to ride.

During the early stages of horse culture guys on chariots rode back and forth from China to Central Europe on chariots ~ various improvements were invented all along the way. They have literally dug up some of the very first axle rigs ever manufactured ! This stuff is that new ~ it's not Ice Age work.

The Greeks, Romans, Persians, Egyptians and Chinese would have been astounded at the big Belgian horses developed for the carriage of armored knights! Those guys are about as big as the elephants in use in Hannibal's time.

Indo Europeans "received the horse" from others ~ but I think they put them to use faster and more effectively than any other group. Hence the successful spread of their language(s).

18 posted on 09/28/2010 4:34:38 PM PDT by muawiyah ("GIT OUT THE WAY" The Republicans are coming)
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To: Palter
The conclusions come from analysis of different forms of the elements oxygen and strontium in his tooth enamel.

Yeah, maybe ...

The face that a person buried in the Mediterranean basin somewhere had such-and-such in his teeth does not prove that people who lived and died in other areas of the world did not also have such-and-such in their teeth.

The amber necklace clearly indicates trade with continental Europe, but the origin of the person is a lot of guesswork.

19 posted on 09/28/2010 4:34:38 PM PDT by Tax-chick (Christine O'Donnell, Sharron Angle, Luna Lovegood. Get it?)
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To: wideminded
Of course neither Islam nor Rome existed 3550 years ago.

Not only that but the Saudis didn't own Fox News then. /s

20 posted on 09/28/2010 4:36:00 PM PDT by TigersEye (Defend liberty. Destroy socialism.)
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