Viggen Posted February 9, 2004 Report Share Posted February 9, 2004 The man who may have helped organise the building of Stonehenge was a settler from continental Europe, archaeologists say. The latest tests on the Amesbury Archer, whose grave astonished archaeologists last year with the richness of its contents, show he was originally from the Alps region, probably Switzerland, Austria or Germany. The tests also show that the gold hair tresses found in the grave are the earliest gold objects found in Britain. The grave of the Archer, who lived around 2,300BC, contained about 100 items, more than ten times as many objects as any other burial site from this time. When details were released, the media dubbed the Archer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jugurtha Posted February 10, 2004 Report Share Posted February 10, 2004 People often wonder how Bronze age Britons obtained all the gold to make the vast masses of gold objects found. Recent research showed that they didn't need any sophisticated techniques. It's just that the landscape must've been quite different and that gold was pretty abundant in the rocks that covered the surface. In a programme about the British landscape a scholar showed how they must've looked for signs of gold (brownish colour) in the boulders. Then they hacked some pieces from the rock and heated them after which they were cooled in a nearby river. This way the rocks become very brittle and can easily be crushed. The crushed remnants are then sieved and the gold particles melted together. He actually found some gold in the first attempt and said we should imagine a landscape filled with these kind of boulders. Equally succesful was another man's attempt to lay a sheep's skin on a rack in a small stream. The skin (fleece) caught the heavy elements of the stream bed he shoveled onto it. After some sieving goldpowder showed up. The fact that only small amounts of gold can be found in rocks and streams nowadays probably shows how intensively early Britons prospected the landscape. - JUG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viggen Posted February 28, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 28, 2004 more on the king of stonehenge; "King" of Stonehenge may have been Swiss Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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