Archaeologica.org

Stonehenge As a Royal Family's Burial Site
Saturday May 31, @04:38PM

A report from Newsday about radiocarbon dating of cremated bones excavated from Britain's Stonehenge has, an archeologist said, solved part of the ancient mystery surrounding the 5,000-year-old site: It was a burial ground for what may have been the country's first royal dynasty. No word on how this work relates to the "Neolithic Lourdes" theory.

"The new dates indicate burials began at least 500 years before the first massive stones were erected at the site and continued after it was completed... The pattern and relatively small number of the graves suggest all were members of a single family. The findings provide the first substantive evidence that a line of kings ruled at least a portion of southern England during this early period. They exerted enough power to mobilize manpower necessary to move the massive stones from as far as 150 miles away and [maintained] that power for at least five centuries, said archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson of the University of Sheffield, leader of current excavations at the site... His findings will also appear in the June issue of National Geographic and in the television special "Stonehenge Decoded," to be shown Sunday."

http://www.newsday.com/services/newspap ... 2465.story

http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/staff/parker.html

It looks like we've lost that argument, Dig.

Then somewhere must be the remains of those who weren't royal Ish. If the 'village' they have found lasted some generations something must have been done with their dead.
Frankly Ish I don't read it as negating what we said earlier, what we appear to have is a royal burial ground apparently in close proximity to their home, exactly as appears to be normal for that period.

Well, maybe it's just me that lost the argument, which was that they (the royal family) would have been buried there because of what went on there. But the dating shows that the bones are older than the stones. So the conclusion is that they ordered Stonehenge to be built for their burials.

Do you have National Geographic on your telly? Stonehenge Decoded is on at 9.00 pm tonight. I'll be watching it.

Doesn't follow Ish. Just as many churches were built later on 'sacred' sites what we have here is that either the erection of the much earlier timber structure sanctified the site or that it was sacred for some reason earlier.
That reason may well have been the burial of a Heroic figure or some unexplained event.
If the burials in some manner sactified the site the later contructions only served to embillish it.
Your argument still stands.

Hi Dig, just watched the documentary and it was quite interesting, but there was an awful lot of speculation. However, it was speculation that I just happened to agree with, that fits into my ideas about ritual practices around that time, so I'm not complaining too much!

They did confirm the view that Stonehenge was a small but significant part of a wider ritual or ceremonial area, thus the burials were within the ritual area, just like in Catal Hoyuk and also as seen with the Barasana Indians.

They also talked about the construction of the henge being a ritual in itself, and that ceremonies were being conducted there even during the building of it. This reminded me of what we know about the building of Catal Hoyuk and Gobekli Tepe - Schmidt says that the were moving the walls around during the ritual themselves. And there was another similarity to GT. The people who built Stonehenge were hunter gatherers and, according to Mike Parker Pearson, they didn't actually live in the area but only came there for for the summer and winter solstice, to take part in the rituals, part of which was building the henge. Just like Gobekli Tepe, there was no evidence of any farming going on in the area.

they didn't actually live in the area but only came there for for the summer and winter solstice, to take part in the rituals, part of which was building the henge.

That implies a social cohesion and hierarchy which just does not seem to exist among HG types but the special is on here tonight as well and with any luck I'll get to see it.

After the ending of The Tudors!

Not the bloody Tudors again!

Yes...yes...heads rolling about all over!