Yesterday ScienceAdvances reported that people all over the British Isles brought pigs with them to Stonehenge to be slaughtered for a feast 2400-2800 BC several centuries before Stonehenge was built.
Multi-isotope analysis reveals that feasts in the Stonehenge environs and across Wessex drew people and animals from throughout Britain
They discovered this through carbon dating of the many bones that evidently litter the grounds.
Abstract
The great henge complexes of southern Britain are iconic monuments of the third millennium BCE, representing great feats of engineering and labor mobilization that hosted feasting events on a previously unparalleled scale. The scale of movement and the catchments that the complexes served, however, have thus far eluded understanding. Presenting the largest five-isotope system archeological dataset (87Sr/86Sr, δ34S, δ18O, δ13C, and δ15N) yet fully published, we analyze 131 pigs, the prime feasting animals, from four Late Neolithic (approximately 2800 to 2400 BCE) complexes to explore the networks that the feasts served. Because archeological evidence excludes continental contact, sources are considered only in the context of the British Isles. This analysis reveals wide-ranging origins across Britain, with few pigs raised locally. This finding demonstrates great investment of effort in transporting pigs raised elsewhere over vast distances to supply feasts and evidences the very first phase of pan-British connectivity.
However, were these the same people that built Stonehenge?
I ask this because sacred space is often used for different purposes by subsequent civilizations. For example, paranormal investigators, archeologists doing dig are constantly desecrating sacred space through their activities.
No comments:
Post a Comment