Secrets of Stonehenge unearthed

Now that's a pretty impressive tombstone. New research suggests that Stonehenge was used as a cemetery for more than 500 years, much longer than previously thought. The new findings also show that people used the area as a burial site long before placement of its trademark stones (or sarsen stones) was complete.

The team was led by Mike Parker Pearson, an archaeology professor at the University of Sheffield, with support from the National Geographic Society.

Andrew Chamberlain, a colleague of Parker Pearson's, says burial at Stonehenge was not for commonfolk. He believes Stonehenge was used as a burial site for an elite family, probably ancient royalty.

Archaeologists believe up to 240 people were buried within Stonehenge, all cremated. In its earliest phase, very few people were buried there, but that number grew over time, leading Chamberlain to believe burials became more common as offspring from the family multiplied.

A show exploring the findings will run on the National Geographic Channel Sunday evening.

These charred bones were extracted from a burial site at Stonehenge. Radiocarbon dating of bones found in the area indicates that they date back to about 3000 B.C., roughly the same time people started to erect the mysterious landmark. Other bones found there suggest people continued to use the area as a burial site until well after the stones went up around 2500 B.C.

"It's now clear that burials were a major component of Stonehenge in all its main stages," said lead archaeologist Parker Pearson. "Stonehenge was a place of burial from its beginning to its zenith in the mid-third millennium B.C. The cremation burial dating to Stonehenge's sarsen stones phase is likely just one of many from this later period of the monument's use and demonstrates that it was still very much a 'domain of the dead.'"

Part of the project also included exploring an ancient nearby village. Archaeologists excavated houses at Durrington Walls, which sits about 2 miles from Stonehenge. In the houses, they found flint tools, part of a dress pin, and swept-away debris. They also found imprints of beds and a dresser, and the remains of an oval-shaped hearth.

Shown here is lead archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson. This is the first time any of the Stonehenge burials had been radiocarbon dated, though the bones studied in this project were excavated in the 1950s.

This is a map of the Stonehenge site. Piles of bones and teeth were excavated from the Aubrey Holes, 56 pits along the perimeter of the area.

This map shows the wider region where Stonehenge sits, near Salisbury, England.

The primary theory put forth by the researchers is that the seasonal village by the Durrington Walls (where archaeologists excavated several homes) was built to accommodate the living, while Stonehenge was built to honor the dead.

Woodhenge, located near that village, was a monument that looked much like Stonehenge but was constructed of timber. Also during this project, the Stonehenge Cursus--an enclosure of two parallel ditches that stretched nearly 2 miles long--was dated to between 36230 to 3375 B.C.