According to
Business Insider, new studies of cremated remains of humans that were excavated from the site suggest that, about 500 years before the Stonehenge that most of us know today was built, a larger stone circle was built at the same site and it was a community graveyard.
According to
Fox, Universty professor Mike Parker Pearson, the team leader, said that it was presumably family groups. Pearson also said that they thought that maybe the site was where a dynasty of kings were buried, but it seemed to be more of a community and a different type of power structure.
According to
Guardian, around 50,000 cremated bone fragments of 63 individuals were studied for the first time. Pearson said that there are presently no plans to extract DNA, so it is not known if the individuals are related or what their relation to one another was. Pearson said that it is clear that the remains were from people who were very special in some way.
The research team included scientists from universities of Manchester, Southampton, London, Durham, York, Sheffield and Bournemouth. Their work will be revealed on Sunday on Channel 4 on Sunday night, Secrets of the Stonehenge Skeletons.
