6,000-year-old tombs found next to Stonehenge!

6,000-year-old tombs found next to Stonehenge!

www.timesonline.co.uk

A prehistoric complex, including two 6,000-year-old tombs, has been discovered by archaeologists in Hampshire.

The Neolithic tombs, which until now had gone unnoticed under farmland despite being just 15 miles from Stonehenge, are some of the oldest monuments to have been found in Britain.

Archaeologists say they will hold valuable clues about how people lived at the time and what their environment was like.

The discovery is also close to Cranborne Chase, one of the most well researched prehistoric areas in Europe.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This is very interesting! Just up the road from me as well, my nan lives about a 2 minute drive away!

It seems they haven't excavated, yet, opting to carry out a out a survey of the land using electromagnetic detectors and ultrasound!

I hope they find something interesting under there, and that it is done in a professional manner.

www.timesonline.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

This will definately be a lot of help for stonhenge. To find out what their society and inner-workings were like. Awesome find! Starred and flagged.
-Z-

15 miles is hardly "next" to Stonehenge.

Especially when people walked everywhere.
.

If I lived in England, or anywhere in Europe, I'd definitely own a metal detector. I bet there is lots of gold just waiting to be discovered. Not to say that the tombs have gold in them, but there is so much still buried.

At least from Roman times onward, it was the custom to bury one's valuables when your town was threatened by raiders or armies. After the danger had passed you would go and recover your loot. How many people didn't live to dig up their treasure?

Lol, I was thinkin the same thing comte. If I were you OP, i'd go treasure huntin.
Who knows, maybe you'll find a site of historical importance and you can tell us all about it!

Originally posted by ZyPHeR
Lol, I was thinkin the same thing comte. If I were you OP, i'd go treasure huntin.

Who knows, maybe you'll find a site of historical importance and you can tell us all about it!

Haha, it's definitely worth a try isn't it? It'd just be finding the time to get out and do it!

I've seen so many people doing it in my local area, i get the feeling everything would have been found by now though!

reply to post by Gools


Gools, while I agree with you in principle, this *was* 6000 years ago. 15 miles of walking (or running) may have been par for the course for them.

i think the articles feeble attempt to link the site to Stonehenge is just a pledge for publicity. Stone henge is "supposedly" dated at about 2500bc, so 1500 years difference between the monument and the burial. if their is a connection its a very weak one. however, i'm of the belief that Stonehenge is probably much older then is publicly stated.

Remember that Stonehenge was not necessarily the first henge. There were others prior to that, sometimes of wood, but this was the largest, and most intricate. If this was a religious construction as some claim, then it was from a culmination of long held beliefs rather than the start of it. Sure St. Peter's in Rome is lovely, but I'm sure early Christians had nothing like it.

1500 years isn't that long in the general scheme of things. It would predate the beaker people, and show very early ceremonial burial.

15 miles isn't that far, especially since farming was unusual in those times. A hunter/gatherer tribal unit would forage these kinds of distances easily.

This is pretty big.

Britain has a 'treasure trove' law. You can't just go digging around and keeping whatever you find.

I visited Stonehenge just 3 years ago and was totally blown away by the complexity of the structure ... especially considering that 4000 years ago it would have been a struggle simply to survive from day to day, let alone find the time and energy to build something as massive and complex as this. So definitely a massive engineering project for their time.
Oh, for a time machine ... :-)