5. Over 200 people are buried there, from far and wide
Whilst our Anglo-Saxon friend may have been buried in a single grave, once shoved beneath the surface he would have found himself in good company. In fact, there are over 200 people from different periods buried at Stonehenge and some experts think it’s simply a great big graveyard. We’ve already discussed the 63 cremated individuals, but there are many other noteworthy burials. The so-called Stonehenge Archer, found in the ditch, was buried c. 2300 BC with flint arrowheads, some of which were stuck in his body, suggesting that he was killed with a bow and arrow.
The Stonehenge Archer was a local man, but Stonehenge was an astonishingly multicultural place of burial. A 15 year old boy with a beautiful amber-bead necklace (above), radiocarbon dated to c.1550 BC, buried there has been proved to have grown up in the Mediterranean. Other burials add yet another layer of mystery to the Bluestones. Between 10 and 25 individuals amongst the 63 cremated people were not from Wiltshire, but Wales. Specifically, the very part of Wales where the Bluestones came from. Was Stonehenge a place of pilgrimage for Welsh people because of the stones carried far from their quarry?
