THEORIES about the purpose of Stonehenge are never in short supply. Now the first carbon-dating evidence from human remains unearthed there suggests that the imposing megalithic monument was a place to bury and commemorate the dead.
Mike Parker Pearson of the University of Sheffield, UK, and his team analysed the cremated remains of three humans uncovered at the site in southern England. They were part of 52 sets of remains revealed by excavations during the 1920s, though the rest were reburied.
The team dated the oldest to around 3000 BC, when construction of the monument began. The most recent of the three remains dated to approximately 2500 BC, around the time when the massive standing stones were erected.
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Parker Pearson says it is now clear that burials were a major component of activity at Stonehenge 鈥渋n all its main stages鈥�. Archaeologists had previously assumed that it was only between 2800 and 2700 BC that the site was used mainly as a burial ground.
鈥淚t is now clear that burials were a major component of activity at Stonehenge in all its main stages鈥�
The team has also been conducting excavations at Durrington Walls 鈥� a massive circular earthwork 3 kilometres north of Stonehenge. Within Durrington Walls are the remains of a giant wooden henge, called the Southern Circle, near a smaller one called Woodhenge.
All three henges have a similar design, and previous carbon dating revealed that Durrington Walls was in use around the same time as the large sandstone blocks were erected at Stonehenge. Parker Pearson says this supports his theory that the two sites were linked, together forming a massive religious complex. 鈥淲e鈥檙e looking at a pairing 鈥� one in timber to represent the transience of life, the other in stone marking the eternity of the ancestral dead.鈥�
The carbon dating of the human remains supports the idea that Stonehenge was used for burials, says Christopher Chippindale at the University of Cambridge鈥檚 Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, but it does not prove that its primary function was as a cemetery. Churches are full of graves, but that is not their primary purpose, he points out. 鈥淚t is another part of the puzzle, but it鈥檚 not the final answer,鈥� he says.
Tim Darvill at Bournemouth University, UK, has a different explanation for why Stonehenge was built. He and Geoff Wainwright, former head of archaeology at the conservation organisation English Heritage, believe that the construction of a stone monument marked a transition in the site鈥檚 use, when it became a centre for healing.
Darvill says the new findings don鈥檛 alter this picture. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a good step forward to have these fully dated examples, but they simply reinforce our model that after about 2500 BC when the stones start being put up, the burials decline in number and the stones become the focus of the monument.鈥�
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