A vast cemetery with graves from the Bronze Age and the Neolithic It was discovered by employees of a construction company in England on Netherhampton Road in the West Hamham area of Salisbury, the city on which lies the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge, considered one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world.
According to a press release from Cotswold Archaeology, the private company that has undertaken the excavation at the site, The cemetery features more than 20 circular mounds known as “burial mounds”. These tombs were built between 2400 and 1500 BC. built into a mound of chalk limestone.
As the company officially announced late last month, the cemetery has been predominantly dated to the Bronze Age, thousands of years younger than Stonehenge, whose construction took place in phases over a considerable period, most of them up to 100 years old ancient were the works carried out at the end of the Neolithic period.
How were burial mounds made?
Source: Cotswold Archaeology.
According to the Cotswold Notice, after centuries of action by farmers in the area, the burial mounds discovered in Netherhampton Road were eventually leveled and all that remains are ditches. However, at least ten burials and three cremations without urns survive.
Grouped in “pairs or small groups of six or more” (of which five have now been excavated), the burial mounds extend from what is known as the “Harnham Rim,” an area of hills and elevated landscape, to the valley of the Nadder River, a few kilometers further below.
The archaeologists noted that the burial mounds are multiphase: two had been significantly enlarged, the note said, and one of them started in a slightly oval ditch that was later replaced with an almost circular one. It can be an indication that its construction predated the others, i.e. still in the Neolithic period.
prehistoric burials
Source: Cotswold Archaeology.
Researchers noted that this oval ditch crossed some wells used to set red deer antlers. an element commonly used in the Neolithic to make tools, ritual elements and small tools such as needles and combs. These attachments are now analyzed to ensure they have been used for these purposes.
In the remains of nine other graves, excavations have uncovered clay vessels in the shape of ‘bell cups’, round drinking vessels that represent an archaeological culture that developed in late Neolithic and early Bronze Age western Europe.
Other, more recent, trades have also been discovered at the archaeological site: one of them, This may have been an Iron Age agricultural area and had over 240 wells and postholes (Wooden structures for buildings). Possibly the pits were used to store grain or for waste disposal. Once the excavation is complete, analysis of the material will begin, says Cotswold Archaeology.