Prehistoric treasures found near the iconic Stonehenge may not have been made by adults but most likely by children, scientists and historians believe.
Considering the intricate details of the jewelries and ceremonial daggers crafted during the Bronze Age, almost 4,000 years ago and 1,000 years prior to the invention of a magnifying glass, they have reason to believe this.
"Only children and teenagers, and those adults who had become myopic naturally or due to the nature of their work as children, would have been able to create and manufacture such tiny objects," Ronald Rabbetts, an expert on optics of human eye, said.
The experts assume the children, possibly as young as 10, could have been working in Brittany, which was said to be the place where they found the biggest concentration of daggers with small gold pin ornaments.
They also believe the intricate work of the golden metal pieces, discovered in the burial mound of Bush Barrow, may have damaged the children's eyesight quickly, yet their tribe may have maintained them as "specialist craft workers."
The burial mound of Bush Barrow was dug in 1808, a time when it was a craze for amateur archaeologists to dig up the past. Found in it was a skeleton believed to be remnants of "a stout and tall man." Together with the skeleton were copper and bronze daggers, gold-belt plate, gold lozenge plaque, mace and axe.
The Bush Barrow metal pieces, regarded as some of the finest ancient metal work that was ever discovered in Britain, are now on gallery display at Wiltshire Museum in Devizes.
"We estimate that the entire operation -- wire manufacture, stud-making, hole-making, resin pasting and stud positioning -- would have taken at least 2,500 hours to complete," Wiltshire Museum curator David Dawson said.
Dawson also said that these artifacts were never accessible by the public in the past, but the generous funding from local and national organizations have made it possible to come up with a "secure and stable environment in which they can be enjoyed by visitors to the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site from Britain and around the world."
The dagger, greatest of all these ancient treasures, however, was dug out of a burial mound that is half a mile away from Stonehenge over 200 years back.
The particular ancient objects were only re-examined now as part of a project to be featured in "Operation Stonehenge: What Lies Beneath" documentary at the BBC2 channel.
