Page 3 - The Sloughi Review_Slide 2

Thirty further cremations were placed
in the enclosure's ditch and at other
points within the monument, mostly in
the eastern half. Stonehenge is
therefore interpreted as functioning as
an enclosed cremation cemetery at this
time, the earliest known cremation
cemetery in the British Isles.

Fragments of unburnt human bone have
also been found in the ditch-fill.
Dating evidence is provided by the late
Neolithic grooved ware pottery that has
been found in connection with the
features from this phase.

Archaeological excavation has indicated
that around 2600 BC, the builders
abandoned timber in favour of stone and
dug two concentric arrays of holes (the
Q and R Holes) in the centre of the
site. These stone sockets are only
partly known (hence on present evidence
are sometimes described as forming
'crescents'); however, they could be the
remains of a double ring.

Again, there is little firm dating
The postholes are smaller than the
evidence for this phase. The holes held
Aubrey Holes, being only around 0.4
up to 80 standing stones (shown blue on
metres (16 in) in diameter, and are much
the plan), only 43 of which can be
less regularly spaced. The bank was
traced today.
purposely reduced in height and the
ditch continued to silt up.
It is generally accepted that the
bluestones (some of which are made of
At least twenty-five of the Aubrey Holes
dolerite, an igneous rock), were
are known to have contained later,
transported by the builders from the
intrusive, cremation burials dating to
Preseli Hills, 150 miles (240 km) away
the two centuries after the monument's
in modern-day Pembrokeshire in Wales.
inception. It seems that whatever the
Another theory is that they were brought
holes' initial function, it changed to
much nearer to the site as glacial
become a funerary one during Phase 2.
erratics by the Irish Sea.

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