Archaeologists dig up through a field in Lincolnshire , England , may have found a 1,300 - year - old hermitage on the web site of a much more ancient henge .
The archaeological squad found grounds for a monumental henge that dates to the Neolithic or Early Bronze Age ; after the site was abandoned , its DoI was reoccupied around the 7th century . By the 12th century , the archimandrite of Crowland build a large lobby and chapel building complex on the internet site , which still stand today . A henge is an ellipse or circular earthwork dating to the Neolithic or other Bronze Age . According to English Heritage , a henge ’s key feature is a bank structure that rings an interior ditch , get to the fundamental area the henge ’s focal gunpoint .
The remains of Crowland ’s medieval abbey are locally believe to have been the hermitage site ofGuthlac , a nobleman - turned - religious hermit who died in 714 . Local custom also links the site to Guthlac ’s sister , Pega , a posthumously fear solitary in her own right , harmonise to the team . Their enquiry describing the henge structure and evidence of pre-12th one C occupation of the site ispublishedtoday in the Journal of Field Archaeology .
An aerial image of the excavation site.Photo: The Anchor Church Field Project
“ We roll in the hay that many prehistorical monuments were reused by the Anglo - Saxons , but to discover a henge — especially one that was antecedently unnamed — occupied in this way is really quite rarefied , ” said Duncan Wright , an archeologist at Newcastle University and head generator of the newspaper , in a universityrelease .
C dating of a rotted wooden post on the site revealed the earthen henge see to between 1502 BCE and 1323 BCE . By the other Middle Bronze Age , the squad found , most of the grok deep that made up the henge were filled in . Until the 12th one C — when the surrounding marshland was drained — the site was on a peninsula , and “ would in all likelihood have been conceived of as the sacred core of the community , ” the squad write in the newspaper .
The web site “ offers an exceptional case study of an develop consecrated landscape in a deep - time view , culminating in its renovation by the Anglo - Norman monastery to claim authenticity from notable saintly forebears , ” they supply .
The ruined nave of Crowland Abbey.Photo:Thorvaldsson
That ’s not whole a surprise ; web site that make grow some sort of ceremonial grandness often keep that importance even as they shift shape . In 2021 , a different squad of researcher found thatStonehenge probably started as an altogether unlike henge .
The mining of Anchor Church Field yielded clayware , two osseous tissue combs , and glass fragments from thin - walled drinking vessels , which the team stated were typical in the 7th to 9th centuries and are associated with gamy - condition activity . standardised Methedrine has been found at ecclesiastical website like Glastonbury Abbey , the team said , but they may be from a funerary context in the recent eccentric .
“ It ’s clear that even in later year Anchor Church Field continue to be seen as a special lieu worthy of veneration , ” enounce Hugh Willmott , an archaeologist at the University of Sheffield , in the same release . “ Guthlac and Pega were very important figures in the early Christian history of England , so it is hugely exciting that we ’ve been able to determine the chronology of what is distinctly a historically important site . ”
One of two bone combs found at the site.Photo: The Anchor Church Field Project
The team also found a 3 - foot - wide ( 1 - meter ) Isidor Feinstein Stone - lined pit in front of the hall and chapel on the web site , thought to be a well when it was found in the 19th century . But the team concluded the orchestra pit was too shallow to be a well , and that it was located above even the historical pee board in the region . Thus , they reason out it may have been a setting for a sword lily or monumental cross in front of the religious site .
While the piece of work does n’t certifiably link the ancient website to Guthlac and Pega , its clear that Crowland was an area of sacred importance to house physician of Lincolnshire for millennia , even before Christianity make it in the region — indeed , long before Christianity began .
More : Stonehenge Started as an Entirely Different Henge , New Research paint a picture
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