A new study concludes that people buried at Stonehenge 5,000 years ago resided in west Wales, where the bluestones used to make the structure originated.
This would mean that these people were not just cremated and buried at the Stonehenge but had also helped transport the bluestones used for the construction of the prehistoric monument. The bluestones were originally sourced from the Preseli Mountains in west Wales more than 100 miles away from the Stonehenge location.
To be specific, 10 out of the 25 people cremated at the Stonehenge and whose charred remains were analyzed for the study were not locally from Salisbury Plain, where the prehistoric monument stands today. Analysis of their cremated remains showed consistency with the identified period in history when quarrying for the bluestones happened.
The international team of scientists who worked for the study has yet to confirm whether these people are the actual creators of Stonehenge. They asserted, however, that what they found was a significant piece to the puzzle of who really built the monument.
Who Built The Stonehenge
Previous studies have already dealt with the question of how and why Stonehenge was built. The quest for "who built" the monument has received far less attention because it was previously difficult to examine the burnt bones.
Now, through using a technique combining stable isotopes and spatial technology, scientists from UCL, University of Oxford, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris, France, were able to track down where the people buried at Stonehenge originated.
For their study, published in Scientific Reports on Aug. 2, the team led by Christophe Snoeck analyzed the strontium isotopes of 25 skulls. These remains were previously excavated in the 1920s from the 56 pits around the Stonehenge known as the Aubrey Holes.
"The cremated remains from the enigmatic Aubrey Holes and updated mapping of the biosphere suggest that people from the Preseli Mountains not only supplied the bluestones used to build the stone circle, but moved with the stones and were buried there too," highlighted John Pouncett, a lead author of the study.
The Neolithic Lifestyle
Aside from providing a clue to the identity of the people who might have built the prehistoric monument, the study also offered a rare insight on how people migrated and behaved in the Neolithic period of about 5,000 years ago. The scientists said it was interesting to know that people around the time were already moving to and fro west Wales and Wessex.
"This is a really exciting discovery because it shows how far some of the Stonehenge people traveled," said Parker Pearson, one of the researchers of the study.
