Boy buried near Stonehenge was from the South

A teenager who died c. 1550 BCE and was buried near Stonehenge with an amber necklace was not raised in Britain but further south, near the Mediterranean, reports BBC. 

The burial was discovered in 2005 5 km south of Stonehenge, in a mound at Boscombe Down, while doing roadworks for military housing. His age at death is estimated to have been 14-15 years old.

The burial shows the characteristic fetal position of Bell Beaker but not the usual grave goods of this subculture

The oxygen isotopes found in his enamel evidence that he grew in a warmer climate than Britain, near the Mediterranean. Date and context suggest to me Portugal, where an important Megalithic civilization was still active at that time. However other places of Megalithic culture in Iberia, Southern France or even North Africa or Italy cannot be discarded with the available information. 

Other people buried near Stonehenge known to have arrived from afar are the Amesbury Archer, a member of the Bell Beaker subculture, known to have grown at the Northern Alps, and the Boscombe Bowmen, also with a Bell Beaker style burial, known to be from Wales or Brittany or maybe even farther away. However all these belong to a much earlier period, 750 years earlier than the boy of the amber necklace. This strongly suggests that Stonehenge and the religious/cultural (and maybe political) complex around it kept attracting people from the wider Megalithic and Bell Beaker area for almost a whole millennium, possibly more.

Stonehenge, no doubt, was a Mecca of its time. Pity that we know so little about the beliefs and society that motivated such pilgrimages.

Hoabinhian neolithic site

Issue #36 of Stone Pages' bulletin, Archaeo News, has arrived to my mailbox with at least one item worth mentioning

New Neolithic (Hoabinhian) site found in North Vietnam

The cave, known as Tham Choong, (Na Hang district, Tuyen Quang province) is dated to 8000-7000 years ago. The tools belong to the Hoabinhian culture, which lasted from some 34,000 years ago to c. 2000 BCE, spanning through Paleolithic and Neolithic.

The thousand or so stone tools recovered served for cutting, chopping and grinding. Bone tools were also found, including a sharply pointed one that archaeologists believe was used for stitching the bark clothes they probably used.

Source: Vietnam News.

Other news

Check the newsletter for other news, such as digs in North America (Utah, already mentioned here from another source, Wyoming, Wisconsin) and Britain (Bronze Age cremation cemetery at projected commercial center near Inverness, Scotland, Bronze Age person from the Isle of Man died violently, trekking path projected between Avebury and Stonehenge, etc.) 

There's also a mention on Timothy Taylor's hypothesis on the baby sling being a decisive invention in human evolution (I'm a bit skeptic but who knows?)

More importantly maybe, Paola and Diego mention that they are heading again to Sardinia, accompanied by archaeologist George Nash, with the intention of persuading the authorities to open the badly sealed and spectacular Tomba della Scacchiera (image below), a Megalithic site that has serious conservation risks and also has a strong touristic potential (already mentioned at Leherensuge).

Megalithic aDNA from Charente Maritime

The paper requires payment and the abstract is not too informative but John Hawks mentions in his blog the essential findings and Jean Manco has already added its results to her exhaustive aDNA list.

Testing only for HVS-1 (hyper-variable control region 1) haplotypes, they found that three individuals buried in Megalithic context at Prissé-la-Charrière, near La Rochelle (Charente Maritime, France), dating to c. 4200 BCE, have the following mtDNA haplogroups: X2, U5a and N1a.

Notice that HVS-1 sequencing is subject to potential criticism because, sometimes, different haplogroups may share the same or very similar signature. Generally aDNA studies are considered more reliable when they go to great lengths to make sure that there is no contamination or sequencing error (they seem to have accounted for that in this case) and when they can confirm haplogroup adscription by testing for SNPs in the control region of the mitochondrial genome.

In any case, this is more data to add to the list of European aDNA, on which I may work out an actualized synthesis soon. It is also intriguing data.


N1a

The authors, as Hawk and others, focus specially on the presence of N1a and with good reason: this haplogroup, now residual among Europeans, has been showing up, sometimes at high apportions, in aDNA from Central European Neolithic sites belonging to the Linear Pottery culture (Danubian Neolithic, LBK by its German acronym): 1/1 in Hungary, 4/11 in East Germany and 1/10 in West Rhenania. The haplogroup nowadays is most common in West Asia and had not been found before in any European aDNA other than Danubian Neolithic and some later Hungarian ones.

It is also noticeable because its relative haplogroup I (also part of haplogroup N1) has been shown to be relatively common among ancient and medieval Danes but is now quite rare.

While other haplogroups like K or various subclades of U also seem to have experienced some contraction, their decline is nothing compared with that of N1 sublineages.


X2

Haplogroup X2 is also somewhat noticeable in my opinion. The lineage is not that common either in Europe (excepting to some extent Orkney islands and some Mediterranean scatter) and can easily be speculated of as a Neolithic arrival. However the antiquity and wide spread of this lineage (from Europe to Native Americans via Altai) does not allow us to reach to conclusions easily.

In any case this is the oldest individual known to have carried this haplogroup. Excepting some unclear cases from the Southern Basque Neolithic (T or X), the next case are two siblings from a Corded Ware culture burial in Eulau, East Germany, c. 2600 BCE, and then some scattered findings from historical times.

This haplogroup, unlike N1 (N1a and I), does not pose any real issue because it is not really being found at high frequencies at all, just like today.


U5a

There seems to be some confusion about which haplogroup is this one: while Hawks reports it as U5a, Jean Manco does as U5b. However searching for the sequence provided by Jean herself at PhyloTree, I can only find a close match in U5a, probably a variant of U5a2a1.

This is where the sequence 16270T, 16271C leads me to. However there is another marker not defining this U5a2a1 haplogroup, 16189C, but this seems extremely variable, with matches in every other haplogroup in the mtDNA tree of humankind, so it is very possible that it only responds to individual or microlineage variance in this case.

U variants including U5 (and U2, U4, U*, etc.) have been reported in the most ancient DNA sequenced anywhere in Europe: Kostenki culture in Russia (1/1 U2), Gravetto-Solutrean in Andalusia (1/2 U*), Magdalenian in Swabia (2/2 U*) and the Epipaleolithic of Portugal (1/9 U5, 1/9 U*), the Don Basin (2/2 U5a), Swabia (2/4 U5b2, 1/4 U5a, 1/4 U4), England (1/1 U5) and Lithuania (3/4 U5b2, 1/4 U4). Additionally they have been reported as dominant in subneolithic or regressive neolithic peoples in the island of Götland and related cultures in Baltic Poland and Germany (Pitted Ware senso lato).

Later the presence of haplogroup U and specifically U5 becomes less common, although it keeps showing up until present, being nowadays a most important haplogroup in all Europe, specially towards the NE. In that part of Europe we do find not just U5a but also U5b and U4 at relatively high frequencies. This is largely coincident with what we do find in aDNA, with the caveat that everywhere but Iberia, the haplogroups seem to have shrunk somewhat since Neolithic arrival (what is easily explained in terms of partial population replacement).

However there is much more than that to haplogroup U: U2 for instance has a more Asian distribution, U6 is typically North African and Iberian, being extremely rare elsewhere, U3 is typical of the Black Sea area and the most common subclade of U8, K, is very much widespread nowadays but only shows up in aDNA since the Neolithic (Alps, Central Europe, Pyrenees). Haplogroup U after all is a very old macro-lineage, by all accounts dispersed at the very colonization of West Eurasia some 40-50,000 years ago.


In context

Neolithic mtDNA in West Eurasia (updated)
Each dot represents one individual
High U Baltic area sites are subneolithic or regressive Neolithic (Pitted Ware)

Hawks, following Dienekes, argues that:

If N1a were present somewhere in pre-Neolithic Europe, it would require some kind of "partition" of the pre-Neolithic population, along with its propagation -- presumably southeastward -- into the LBK of central Europe. Seems doubtful.

I fail to see the point, sincerely. It does not require anything of that, I don't see why. We must remember that Neolithic diffusion, following the archaeological record, is a complex process in many cases showing clear signs of cultural (and hence demographic) continuity at least in the Mediterranean (Cardium pottery and related remains are often found along locally rooted Epipaleolithic tools and only in specific sites colonization seems the most likely explanation for its expansion). Even if population replacement may be a more likely case for Central Europe, there is still the unsolved problem of where did the core immigrant population originated: West Asia, Greece, Hungary or a mix of all three? The lack of aDNA for the Balcans and Turkey does not really help, the only reference remaining being the PPNB site of Tell Halula, at the Upper Euphrates.

This site does show abundance of mtDNA K and T (specifically T2b) and some presence of the ubiquitous H too, together with L2, R* and C1. The K+T combo shows up also in Central European Neolithic but the explanation for the origin of other associated haplogroups (J and N1a specially) is not clear on light of the present data. It can be argued for them having a West Asian origin certainly but the case is far from settled. The other LBK haplogroups, found in Paleolithic individuals from Europe and Morocco, can hardly be argued to have spread with Neolithic (the problem of the expansion of H to Northern Europe remains murky however with my favorite explanatory vectors being either the late Bronze Age Urnfield culture or Megalithism but notice also low Paleolithic/Neolithic sampling in the North Sea area, still allowing for UP presence for this lineage). The causes of the apparent decline of N1 (N1a and I) in Europe remain equally confusing as well.

The particular case of Prissé-la-Charrière also requires an explanation but I can only give a negative one: it cannot be attributed to LBK in any case because Danubian Neolithic never reached so far south. But it actually contrasts more with the samples related to Cardium Pottery (Mediterranean Neolithic) and Megalithism (largely "Atlantic Neolithic") in Iberia and Italy, which display a very different array of haplogroups (H, U*, U5, K, J, etc.) This in turn makes more difficult to argue for a Mediterranean or Atlantic Neolithic origin of this localized aDNA sample.

The case remains open in my opinion.


References:

Marie-France Deguilloux et al., News from the West: Ancient DNA from a French Megalithic burial chamber. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2010. Pay per view.

Building History: Ancient Eurasian DNA.

Leherensuge: European ancient DNA in sequential maps (not updated in almost a year).


Update: Link to the whole paper (PDF), courtesy of Natsuya. They report the U5 individual as U5b, by the way.

Indian Megalithic wares and other Archaeonews

Stone Pages' weekly newsletter Archaeonews has arrived again at my mailbox bringing some interesting informations:


Tamil Nadu Iron Age findings

Sengalur village (Puddukotari district, Tamil Nadu, India) hosts some 300 Iron Age burials of Megalithic style, described as stone circles with or without cairn packing, stone circle with cist burial of different types, cist burial with an extension in the front, urn burials, urn burials with capstone, menhir and rectangular shaped structure.

They are being excavated by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), reaching also to the nearby villages of Sittanavasal, Melapatti and Nathakadu, producing a large catalog of material culture from that period, that includes terracotta figurines, beads made of glass, semi-precious stones and terracotta, broken bangles (glass bracelets) and potsherds inscribed with graffiti.

Source: The Hindu


Other news

The newsletter also includes other archaeological news such as:

• Looting seems to have destroyed more than half of ancestor stones at Cross Rivers State (Nigeria). More at The Sun.
• Teotihuacan dwellers used the bones of their relatives for buttons and other quotidian objects. More at National Geographic.
• Most ancient known house of Britain found at Scarborough, dated to 8500 years ago (Epipaleolithic). More at BBC and many other news sites.
  

Some Archaeo News

The compilation of archaeological news by the team of the reference site Stone Pages strikes with a new update, some of whose snippets I found of some significance:

• Çatalhöyuk team to announce new findings this summer (more at Hürriyet)
  
• Guernsey's only gallery grave (passage dolmen) dug by archaeologists (more at BBC)
• Possible indications of Neolithic at Andrah Pradesh discovered by freelance archaeologist (more at The Hindu - not a very clear story)
• Neanderthals and Sapiens probably diverged long ago because of teeth morphology (more at Science Daily).
  

I already mentioned this last story earlier in relation to the latest Neanderthal Genome controversial molecular clock guesstimates, which caused palaeoanthropologist Aida Gómez, of the Atapuerca team, pointing to her older works on the matter saying: no way, it's more like one million years. It seems that the story is still bouncing around, now in English.

Some archeological news

Stone pages' Archaeo News bulletin is back to normality and I think these items are worth mentioning:

• England: discovered cairn complex at Otley, Yorkshire. More at The Northern Antiquarian.
• Australia: ongoing research at Kimberley hopes to find clues of earliest inhabitants. More at The Australian.
• USA: underwater black chert source at North Carolina suggest coastal migration of Paleo-Indians. More at Star News.
  
• Oman: a 5000 years old cemetery. More at Gulf Times.
• Bahrain: Dilmun culture's burial mounds will be researched before massive development destroys them. More at Gulf Daily.
• India: stone circles' complex largely destroyed in development at Thiruporur, Tamil Nadu. More at the Megalithic Portal (another reference site).

One of the surviving stone circles of Thiruporur (from the Megalithic Portal)

You can discuss these news and much more at Stone Pages' forums.

Nineteen: hemeretzi

Andalusian archaeology blog Pileta de Prehistoria has a nice video archive on Spanish caves (in Spanish language what I've seen so far) that I have just began browsing (earlier I was suffering of some JavaScript bugs that did not let me enjoy all their features).

But it's not about this archive what I want to talk but about a detail of the main panel of the Peñaescrita shelter that I found there. I took this still:


In at least two of the figures I can see the number 19 following the method I read years ago on a book on Iberian archaeoastronomy (sorry but I can't remeber any better reference).

The method, apparently found in many drawings of the period (Chalcolithic) through southern Iberia as well as in the perforated plates of the VNSP-Zambujal civilization in Portugal consists essentially in drawings with the following patterns:

(a) |||||||||/

(b) \\\\\\\\\|/////////

In the second case (b), you count all the lines to 19 but they are distributed in a 9-1-9 pattern, in the former instead (a), the 19 is "hidden" in a 9-1 pattern that you have to read again backwards to form the 9-1-9 or 19 number.

Why 19? What does it mean? For what I recall it was a key number, together with 4, to follow the lunar cycles. They argued that they also produced larger numbers such as 223, which is the key to predict lunar ecclipses (as they happen every such period of lunations or natural months). For some reason that I don't grasp well enough, the number 19 was the most evident and maybe most common in these drawings, of which the above image has two examples (the horizontal bar with 10 other bars hanging from it (a) and the plant drawing to the right (b)).

And this discovery brought me to consider the origin of two Basque numeral names: hamaika (11) and hemeretzi (19). I noticed them because they are the only numbers betwen 10 and 20 that are not said 10-something (i.e. hamabi: 12 < hamar: 10 + bi: 2)

Hamaika or amaika (the 'h' is a mute modern standarization rule that does not exist in most dialects) means of course 'eleven' and is also used in figurative sense to mean 'lots', 'many', but it may equally mean 'finishing' or 'in the way of ending' (from amai(-tu): 'to end', 'to finish'). I hypothesize that in this Chalcolithic astronomical context the name would indicate something like "last count", "begin finishing here".

Hemeretzi also can be understood quite straightforwardly to be hemen etzin: 'here lay'.

I also speculated a bit on whether another number of long name, bederatzi (9), might mean something in this context (bider atzi: 'access the prominence'??) but it has too many possible interpretations so I can't tell with minimal certainty.

In any case, this is a reason why I think that Basque language might have its roots in an important language of the Megalithic area of that era: because these two numerals appear to make sense only in this esoteric context. Surely, back then, large numbers above 10 (some linguists speculate that Basque originally had only numbers up to five) would not be used too much by the commoners, instead priests, druids or witches working with these concepts to be able to make calendaric predictions, in particular eclipses, had to know them and used them often, at least in these esoteric cryptographic calendars.

It's well known that experts in the Megalithic cultural area had an ample and often surprisingly good understanding of astronomy, a key knowledge in an agricultural or mariner context. So the calendars should not raise too many eyebrows. What I'm sure will put some people in a defensive attitude is to relate this knowledge with Basque language with such a clear native etymology.

But that's what I see in any case.

Intriguing ring structures being researched in Portugal

There seems to be several of these structures in SW Iberia but many are under urbanized areas. However the one at Perdigoes (Reguengos de Monsaraz) is not and is hence being researched by the University of Malaga.

They are made up of concentric ditches that, for what has been discovered so far, were created sequentially, with the ones at the interior being filled when the exterior ones were dug. The different texture of the fillings, which retain water better, allows for these to be seen in air photographs after rains (photo below).


In Perdigoes, the interior (oldest) rings seem to be dated to the second half of the fourth milennium (c. 3500-3000 BCE), while the most recent are from well into the third milennium. They have found varied stuff in them, including human and animal remains.

We believe that these were spaces that hosted scattered groups for ceremonial purposes such as marriages or funerals. When these ceremonies were over, they made the enclosure to disappear, throwing everything into the ditches.

Source: Terra Antiquae (in Spanish). It also includes a link to a PDF (also in Spanish) on the maybe related mysterious and ubiquitous Chalcolithic silos/wells of this area, which are argued to be local manifestations of more widespread practices of the Megalithic area. See also this news item (ADN, in Spanish too).

The demographics of British Neolithic (2)

I wrote yesterday on the new research by Collard et al. that suggests that Britain experimented a rapid population increase in the few centuries that followed the arrival of farming to the island. Afterwards a reader has sent me a copy of the paper (a million thanks again) and I can now comment a bit further with better knowledge of the matter.

But first of all the sequence:


This graph, which is central to the research, represents the archaeological findings with a C14 date for the whole island of Great Britain (I understand). As you can see the population explodes after c. 6000 calBP (calibrated C14 dates, our best equivalent to "years ago" since 1950 - equivalent to c. 3950 BCE in this case), even if we discard the monuments. The demic growth was some 400% in four centuries, maybe more.

Later, by the second half of the millennium, the population decreased very sharply again but, thanks to agriculture surely, remained higher than in the Epipaleolithic (250%?). Since then it remained stable, although it is difficult to interpret the growth in monumental sites in the second half of the 3rd millennium BCE in terms of demography.

As the authors argue this explosion is difficult to conciliate with a process of gradual incorporation of farming by the natives and fits best with the model of colonization from the mainland.


Regional differences

Most of the Neolithic colonization (or demic explosion) process happened in two specific areas: SW England and central Scotland. The rest of the island was unaffected or only affected in a secondary and less intense manner. Naturally (climate) SW England experienced a much more intense demic explosion than Scotland, which began slightly before and ended also somewhat later.

This is the situation at the apogee of SW English Neolithic, 5600-5700 calBP ("hotter" colors like white imply greater density, black implies same density as in Epipaleolithic):


The Scottish Neolithic apogee was apparently some 100 years early and here is shown already receding (but was not much more extense nor intense anyhow).


Armorican ('French') origins

The authors argue that the migrations were two, both originated in NW France but in different subregions.

The first wave was that affecting SW England and seems to have originated in the Megalithic area of Lower Normandy, with some elements also from the (non-Megalithic) Neolithic of Nord-Pas-de-Calais.

One hundred years later more or less, a second wave original from Brittany (also within the Dolmenic Megalithism cultural area) touched in coastal Wales and reached Scotland. There are no traces of any other migration.

Both Lower Normandy and Brittany, as well as the inland areas between the Seine and the Loire rivers, were a homogeneous cultural region that is only second in Europe to develop the Dolmenic Megalithic cultural set (earliest known are in Southern Portugal and nearby districts of Spain, soon after Neolithization, c. 7000 BP). In Celtic and Roman times it was known as Armorica, meaning the Sea Country, as a whole it has no other collective name so guess that talking of Armorican Neolithic or Armorican Megalithism makes full sense.

This ancient country would be in any case the main source of the Neolithic colonists that this paper suggests.


Questions

Why did the population decline so sharply after the initial explosion? Did they over-exploit their environment? Is the initial abrupt growth an artifact of archaeological research?

If the arrival of Neolithic to Great Britain (and NW Iberia at least) is product of the spread of Dolmenic Megalithism, does this imply that we should begin to consider Megalithic expansion as a demic phenomenon in general, with all the implications it would have in population genetics? I find this hard to believe but I am not totally sure. If so, should we consider Portugal as the origin?

What happened in the "black" (or even dark red) areas that are about half of the island? It does not look like there was any colonization there. How did they become Megalithic then?

Why did the people of Great Britain began building so many monuments since 2500 BCE? This is precisely a very hot period in Europe, when Indoeuropeans (Kurgan) took over West Germany and Scandinavia, but also just after the formation of the first West European civilizations in southern Iberia (VNSP and Los Millares) and not long before the increase in trade associated to the Bell-Beaker phenomenon. Does all this imply some sort of increase in political organization?


Source: Mark Collard et al., Radiocarbon evidence indicates that migrants introduced farming to Britain. Antiquity, 2009.

New megalithic find at Devon, Britain

Archaeology in Europe points me to this brief press note where a new archaeological discovery of some significance in, Devon, SW England.

The site, found under an old reservoir in Dartmoor National Park, has produced so far, a 27 m. wide stone ring, burial mounds and remains of walled buildings dated to c. 4000 BP. The oldest findings are anyhow from the Epipaleolithic (Mesolithic) era.
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Major archaeology news from Britain and Ireland

Via Archaeology in Europe, a most interesting blog I only recently discovered.


Megalithic "cathedral" discovered in Orkney.

Apparently part of the huge complex, possibly of religious relevance, found in Orkney (including the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stennes) a huge building of 82x65 feet (approx. 26x21 meters), dated to c. 3000 BCE, has been unearthed at Orkney at the Ness of Brodgar site. The walls, some 16 ft thick (5 m) stand still to up one meter and must have been much higher in the past.

The building includes a cross-shaped "sanctum", including stone furniture, a surrounding paved outer passage, and an unusual menhir or standing stone split by a hole with an hour-glass shape.

In the same area a large wall, dubbed "the Great Wall of Brodgar", was discovered last year. The whole site is thought as huge religious complex of some sort.

Read more at News.Scotsman.

For more complete information on the archaeological research, Toos, points me to Orknejar.

Precisely I was discussing this matter a few weeks ago with my apartment mate. My question was basically: what the heck was doing such a huge temple in such a remote place? For him the religious and maybe astronomical reasons were enough, while I feel the need to find a more materialist explanation such as cod fisheries (sometimes claimed to be the culprit of Megalithic expansion) or even strategic reasons (would control the northern sea route). Naturally both explanations are not contradictory.


Other news are:

• Oldest British Neolithic home, 9000 years old, found at the Isle of Man. Read more at Daily Mail.
• Oldest Scottish settlements at Biggar, from 14,000 years ago, throughtly digged thanks to massive volunteer assistance. Read more at Hamilton Advertiser.
• Neolithic (Chalcolithic by pan-European standards) settlement at Derry is 5000 years old. Read more at Derry Journal.

An update: as this post goes about British Neolithic archaeology, it's worth noting that there has been yet another discovery, this one in London: a timber platform pathway apparently used by the locals to cross a peat bog at the Thames has been dated to almost 6000 years ago. A similar structure dating to c. 5000 years ago was already known. Read more at Science Daily.
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Major Indian megalithic monument destroyed

From Stone Pages - Archaeonews: Megalithic site in India being destroyed.

Real state developers have all but destroyed an important Iron Age megalithic monument at the village of Vellarpatti, near Madurai (Tamil Nadu). The monument, including cairn circles (stone rings?), menhirs (standing stones) and burial slabs, is dated to 1000-500 BCE and is one of the most important ones in that part of India.

Nevertheless the archaeological and cultural authorities have failed to protect the site and developers have removed most of it to build a road, a modern temple, an industrial area as well as delimiting parcels for further developement.

The site is, at a later date, also associated to the Pandya king Nedunchezhiyan.

6 meters' pallisade 'hid Stonehenge'

From Stonepages: A 20ft-high palisade hid Stonehenge 5,000 years ago.

Apaprently such a high visual barrier, surrounding most of the complex, prevented the common of mortals from snooping into the rituals that were performed at the British monument.

My question would be: what color was it painted of? (Ok, silly question).

Stonehenge burials II: contextualizing the end of elite burials.

Yesterday I posted briefly on the recent news on the many Stonehenge burials. But I believe I have something more to say than just "oooh!" and read this and that. In fact I have already done that in other spaces but I missed doing the same on Leherensuge. After all, Leherensuge is, according to Xaho, the first Dragon or first and late Serpent, and there is probably no place in Europe where the dragon is as mythically relevant as in SW Britain.

Going to the grain, the most intriguing fact I found in this (re-)discovery of the Stonehenge elite burials is that the most recent burial is from some date between 2570 and 2340 BCE (c. 2450 to say a most likely date). Why is this date relevant? Because it is intriguinly coincident of some major events in the rest of Europe that may have influenced it. Let's review them briefly:

- Since c. 2800 offshots of Michelsberg and since c. 2600 the Seine-Oise-Marne culture expanded into mid-western France and Brittany, putting an end to the monumental and elite-burial Megalithism of that area. This Breton/French elitist Megalithism would seem to have some parallels with the British one, specially monumentality and elite burial, as well as the use of dolerite (bluestone) as ritual or prestige item.

One of the impressive Carnac monuments

- Since c. 2600 BCE the bowmen people of Artenac culture (Megalithic, born in Dordogne and possible ancestor of historical Aquitanians and modern Basques) began fighting these expanding Danubians and by c. 2400 BCE they had conquered all Atlantic France and Belgium. Artenacian type of Megalithism is a much more common one where monuments are generally small and aboundant (no apparent elitist but generalized clannic burial probably).

- Since c. 2600 too two Megalithic civilizations, builder of rather large fortified towns, appeared in southern Iberia: Zambujal/Vila Nova in west-central Portugal and Los Millares in SE Spain.

Some of the complex and still ill excavated fortifications of Zambujal, north of Lisbon

- Also c. 2400 BCE the Corded Ware culture consolidated Indo-European control of Central Europe and incorporated Scandinavia too, putting an end to Scandinavian Megalithism.

- Since c. 2300 the Bell Beaker phenomenon expanded rapidly in both Indo-European Central Europe and pre-Indoeuropean and Megalithic Western Europe, as well as some other related areas (Italy, Denmark, North Africa). While probably original from Bohemia, c. 2100 it would become centered in Zambujal. It is in any case a minority phenomenon that does not generally change the local cultures where it is found (though there maybe an exception or two). The most common explanation is that of a sect or guild of bowmen-traders, who were wealthy and possibly influential but who conquered nobody, much less changed their traditions.

Nice bell-shaped beaker

Anyhow, while not excluding totally that the Bell Beaker phenomenon can not totally be discarded as somehow related, the odds and the dates rather suggest the immediately previous period of rapid changes. In particular I think that the fall of elitist Megalithism in Brittany/West France influenced the end of elite burials in Stonehenge. The dates speak on their own.

Later, since the end of Chalcolithic (early 2nd milennium BCE), Megalithism would gradually recede, and France was one of the first places where it happened.

Stonehenge burials

Yesterday National Geographic News published that Prof. Pearson, involved in the recent digs of the Megalithic monument, suspects that it was primarily a place of dynastic (or otherwise elite) burials. This in contrast to other researchers' opinions that have suggested it was a "Neolithic Lourdes" and the more classical astronomical understanding of the landmark.

It is a very interesting and intriguing issue and while I don't feel right now like to write too much about it, I have made some contextual meditations on the issue in Stone Pages' Archaeo Forums, if you are interested.

Another interesting article is found at the University of Bristol site. Thanks to PeteG for it and also for the announcement that further excavations are expected soon in the NW part of the monument.

Archaeological dig at Stonehenge followed day by day

As you may know, these days an archaological team is making some research excavation at most famous Stonehenge site, the first one in decades. I just found that the BBC is following it day by day, with brief reports and videos, including a quite funny blessing of the operation by some "druids" - very hippy really.

It's a rare case when one can follow so closely an ongoing archaeological excavation, so I beleive it's worth to take a look: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/stonehenge/