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Who was buried at Stonehenge? Newstudy sheds light

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! Updated 2036 GMT (0436 HKT) August 2, 2018By Ashley Strickland, CNN

" # $ %

Story highlights

A new study suggests that some of thepeople buried at Stonehenge built themonument

The human remains, and the bluestones, arefrom west Wales

(CNN) — As one of the world's most famous prehistoric

monuments, Stonehenge still holds many secrets

despite centuries of study. For the first time, new

research is lifting the veil on the people who are buried

at Stonehenge.

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports

on Thursday.

Much of the previous research around the monument in Wiltshire, England, has centered around

how or why Stonehenge was built -- not the people buried there or who built it.

But studying the human remains at Stonehenge is no easy task. In addition to dating back to

3,000 BC, the remains were also cremated. During the early phase of Stonehenge's history, it

largely served as a cemetery.

Fortunately, lead study author Christophe Snoeck, post-doctoral researcher at the Vrije

Universiteit Brussel, combined his passions for archeology and chemical engineering to pioneer

developments in archaeological analysis.

The results revealed that 40% of the people buried at Stonehenge likely came from west Wales,

the suggested origin of the site's smaller bluestones, and they most likely helped transport the

stones and build Stonehenge. Signals from the bone analysis suggested that within the last ten

years of their lives, these people were not living at Stonehenge nor originally from the area

around Stonehenge, known as the Wessex region.

"Our results are the first one to provide direct evidence on the origin of those buried at

Stonehenge, shedding light on the importance of the site in the Neolithic landscape," Snoeck

said in an email.

Investigating cremated remainsWhen Snoeck was working on his doctoral research at the University of Oxford's School of

Archaeology, he was able to show that cremated bones still retain vital information.

"My research goal was to assess what information could still be obtained from archeological

human remains even after cremation," Snoeck said. "I managed to demonstrate that some

geographical information still remained in cremated bone and this new development is what

enable us to go back to the human remains from Stonehenge and carry out this exciting study. "

The Historic England and English Heritage that looks after historic sites across England gave

Snoeck and his colleagues permission to use this new technique, called strontium isotopic

analysis, on cremated human remains from 25 individuals. The chemical element strontium is a

heavy alkaline earth metal that is about seven times heavier than carbon. This can reflect the

average of the food eaten over the last decade before death. Geological formations and soil also

reflect strontium isotope ratios, like the signature of the chalk that the Wessex region sits on.

By performing this analysis on the remains, the researchers would be able to figure out where

these people had lived during the last ten years of their lives because the signature would still be

in the bones.

The remains, dating from 3,180 to 2,380 BC, were initially uncovered by Colonel William Hawley

during excavations that occurred during the 1920s. He reburied them in pits within the

Stonehenge site that are known as Aubrey Holes, named for 17th century antiquarian John

Aubrey who first discovered the pits. Three of the individuals were juveniles, while the others

were likely adults, and they were able to identify that nine were possibly male and six were

possibly female.

"Cremation destroys all organic matter [including DNA] but all the inorganic matter survives and

we know, from the study of tooth enamel, that there is a huge amount of information contained

in the inorganic fraction of human remains," Snoeck said.

But temperatures during cremation, depending on the method, can reach over a thousand

degrees Fahrenheit. How would that ahect any information left within the bones?

"When it comes to light chemical elements (such as carbon and oxygen), these are heavily

altered but for heavier elements such as strontium no alteration was observed," Snoeck said.

"On the contrary, thanks to the high temperatures reached, the structure of the bone is modified

and making the bone resistant to post-mortem exchanges with burial soil."

The analysis of the bones was also matched with results from plants, water and teeth data from

modern-day Britain. They discovered that 15 of the individuals were locals, but the other ten

weren't connected to the region and likely spent at least the last ten years of their lives in

western Britain -- which includes west Wales.

"We did not expect to see so many individuals having a signal that shows they did not [live] near

Stonehenge in the last decade or so of their life," Snoeck said.

"To me the really remarkable thing about our study is the ability of new developments in

archaeological science to extract so much new information from such small and unpromising

fragments of burnt bone," said Rick Schulting in a statement, study coauthor and associate

professor of scientific and prehistoric archeology at the University of Oxford.

Unraveling more mysteriesThe cremations weren't uniform, either, utilizing diherent fuel or occurring under diherent

conditions. For instance, the locals were cremated likely using a pyre built with wood that was

grown in an open setting, like the landscape around Stonehenge. The others were cremated

with wood that came from dense woodlands, exactly like the landscape in west Wales.

But if these people were cremated in Wales, how did they end up at Stonehenge?

During his 1920s excavations, Hawley noted that some of the cremated remains in the Aubrey

Holes were stored in leather bags, which led him to believe that they "had apparently been

brought from a distant place for interment."

Perhaps their remains were brought from Wales and

buried when the bluestones were being raised at

Stonehenge, the study authors suggest. This

knowledge is compelling to the researchers, given that

a recent theory suggests the bluestones initially stood

within the Aubrey Holes themselves.

Being able to connect the stones and human remains

to Wales provides more intriguing theories and rare

insight for researchers as well.

This suggests that the construction of Stonehenge required connections that were 140 miles

apart. As early as 5,000 years ago, Neolithic people and materials were going back and forth

between west Wales and Wessex to build and use Stonehenge.

Snoeck hopes to develop new methods and apply his technique at other sites containing

cremated remains. But the gravity of working with human remains from Stonehenge was a

privilege.

"It was extremely exciting and terrifying at the same time," Snoeck said. "In a way, it was like

giving them a new life."

Cremated human bone fragments from Stonehenge.

Aubrey Hole 7.

Carn Goedog in west Wales is regarded as the source of bluestones erected in the early stage ofStonehenge's construction.

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Photos: Ancient finds

Researchers stand at the excavation site of Aubrey Hole 7, where cremated human remains were recoveredat Stonehenge to be studied. New research suggests that 40% of 25 individuals buried at Stonehengeweren't from there -- but they possibly transported stones from west Wales and helped build it.

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Photos: Ancient finds

The fossil of the newly discovered armored dinosaur Akainacephalus johnsoni was found in southern Utah.

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