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Welsh origins of people buried at Stonehenge

2 August 2018

Collaborative research involving UCL archaeologists has discovered that cremated humans at Stonehenge were from the same region of Wales as the smaller standing stones, bluestones, used in construction.

Stonehenge (Image courtesy of Adam Sanford, Ariel Cam Ltd)

Researchers suggest that a number of people buried at the Wessex site had moved with, and likely transported, the bluestones which were sourced from the Preseli Mountains in west Wales and used in the early building of Stonehenge.

The new study involving the University of Oxford, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris as well as UCL has been published in Nature Scientific Reports.

The results, following isotope analyses and radiocarbon dating, emphasise the importance of inter-regional connections involving the movement of both materials and people in the construction and use of Stonehenge, providing rare insight into the large scale of contacts and exchanges in the Neolithic period, as early as 5,000 years ago.

UCL Institute of Archaeology PhD student Christie Willis, the project osteologist who excavated and analysed the cremated human remains from Stonehenge, indicated: 

  • "This new methodology is exciting as it can be applied to other archaeological sites in order to understand prehistoric mobility patterns and dietary consumption from cremation deposits across Britain."

According to Mike Parker Pearson:

  • "This is a really exciting discovery because it shows how far some of the Stonehenge people travelled. But what's really fascinating is that this date of around 3000 BC coincides with our radiocarbon dates for quarrying at the bluestone outcrops in the Preseli hills of Pembrokeshire. Some of the people buried at Stonehenge might have even been involved in moving the stones - a journey of more than 180 miles."

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