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. 2018 Aug 2;8(1):10790.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-28969-8.

Strontium isotope analysis on cremated human remains from Stonehenge support links with west Wales

Christophe Snoeck  1   2 , John Pouncett  3 , Philippe Claeys  4 , Steven Goderis  4 , Nadine Mattielli  5 , Mike Parker Pearson  6 , Christie Willis  6 , Antoine Zazzo  7 , Julia A Lee-Thorp  3 , Rick J Schulting  3
Affiliations

Strontium isotope analysis on cremated human remains from Stonehenge support links with west Wales

Christophe Snoeck et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Cremated human remains from Stonehenge provide direct evidence on the life of those few select individuals buried at this iconic Neolithic monument. The practice of cremation has, however, precluded the application of strontium isotope analysis of tooth enamel as the standard chemical approach to study their origin. New developments in strontium isotopic analysis of cremated bone reveal that at least 10 of the 25 cremated individuals analysed did not spend their lives on the Wessex chalk on which the monument is found. Combined with the archaeological evidence, we suggest that their most plausible origin lies in west Wales, the source of the bluestones erected in the early stage of the monument's construction. These results emphasise the importance of inter-regional connections involving the movement of both materials and people in the construction and use of Stonehenge.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Cremated occipital bone fragments from Stonehenge.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Biologically available strontium (BASr) baseline (left – mean and right – 1 SD), generated using the Spatial Join and Polygon to Raster tools in ArcGIS Desktop 10.6 (http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/latest/tools/analysis-toolbox/spatial-join.htm and http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/latest/tools/conversion-toolbox/polygon-to-raster.htm). Based upon BGS Geology 625k, with the permission of the British Geological Survey.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Geographic assignments of two of the sampled individuals (left – Sample 288, 0.7109, ‘non-local’; right – Sample 390b, 0.7079, ‘local’) based on the residuals between the measured 87Sr/86Sr isotope ratio and the focal mean of the BASr baseline (5 km search radius), calculated using the Focal Statistics and Raster Calculator tools in ArcGIS 10.6 (http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/latest/tools/spatial-analyst-toolbox/focal-statistics.htm and http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/latest/tools/spatial-analyst-toolbox/raster-calculator.htm).
Figure 4
Figure 4
87Sr/86Sr results for cremated human remains from Stonehenge and biologically available strontium values (BASr) from the Wessex chalk and west Wales.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Differences between ‘locals’ and ‘non-locals’ in (a) strontium concentration and (b) δ13C.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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