Saturday, September 20, 2014

Monumental Tombs in France 6500 BP






Human remains are welcome as these are often missing. Otherwise we appear to have a society populous enough to produce huge barrow mounds for their dead. This coincides with the early Bronze Age and coincident agricultural expansion throughout all Europe.

Thus it is clear that early Bronze Age traders did have viable destinations to visit and establish trade factories with. Nothing depended on the advent of available metal as was true on the Pacific niorthwest as well. Metal is a bonus that allows certain tasks to simply become easier.


The actual villages need to also be available and they may also be robust as well as grain culture should be well established.


Archaeologists discover 20 monumental tombs dating back 6,500 years in France

13 SEPTEMBER, 2014 - 03:19 APRILHOLLOWAY



A team of archaeologists in France have unearthed a Neolithic necropolis containing at least twenty monuments and some intact burials, according to a report in Past Horizons.  The monumental constructions, some of which are several hundred metres long, are the first tombs of their kind to be found in the region.

The discovery was made on an area of land in Fleury-sur-Orne in northwestern France, which currently has planning permission for the construction of a residential development with up to 1,800 houses.

The necropolis, which dates back to the Middle Neolithic (c 4,500 BC), consists of elongated structures made from earth and wood, ranging in size from 12 metres to 300 metres in length. The monuments are surrounded by ditches, which range from 20 cm in width to up to 15 metres, and which may have once held wooden fences.   The fact that the tombs range in size from small, simple burials to large and more elaborate constructions, suggest that their society had a hierarchical structure.


Archaeological evidence suggests that the 6,500-year-old tombs were once covered with mounds of earth, which have since been destroyed by agricultural practices over the centuries. Reports suggest that at least some of the mounds were still visible until WW2.


One of the tombs remained exceptionally well-preserved and was found to have the original walls of stacked grass turves still intact, and many of the graves were found to contain preserved arrow heads.

One grave contained the skeletal remains of a man with an arrow still embedded in his pelvic bone.

Archaeologists will now undertake extensive testing on the human remains uncovered at the site in an attempt to learn about their origins, their diet, and causes of death. 


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