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Death riddle of the Stones
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Death riddle of the Stones
Western Daily Press
15/07/2000
BY DAVID HUMPHREY
EXPERTS have pinpointed the age of a decapitated skeleton found at Stonehenge and opened an intriguing new chapter in the shadowy history of the famous monument.
Was Stonehenge an execution site?
Radiocarbon analysis has revealed the male skeleton dates back to Anglo Saxon times and is about 1,300 years old.
Now historians are pondering the significance of the choice of Stonehenge as an execution site.
It raises the possibility that the victim was a political leader, killed during disputes between rival kings.
Archaeologist Mike Pitts carried out the investigation for Channel 4's Secrets Of The Dead: Murder At Stonehenge, which will be screened next Monday at 9pm.
He traces the last moments of the victim's life and investigates why a Saxon man was taken to Stonehenge, brutally beheaded and buried.
The new findings suggest the execution took place between AD 620 and AD 770, possibly around AD 650-690.
The skeleton was excavated in 1923 and was believed to have been destroyed in the London blitz of 1941.
But last year Wiltshire author Mr Pitts, former curator of a museum at Avebury stone circle, traced it to the Natural History Museum, where it was labelled simply Skeleton No 4.10.4.
He had been beheaded with a sharp sword. Scientific analysis of one of his teeth indicates he was born locally.
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