Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com – Beneath the quiet earth of jap Norway, a prehistoric puzzle is increasing. Archaeologists working on the historic Hunn burial floor (Hunnfeltet) close to Fredrikstad have unearthed a sequence of hidden stone circles, shedding new gentle on a web site that has lengthy fascinated researchers.
A few of the stone circles on the South Area. Credit score: Lasse Biørnstad / Science Norway
The invention unfolded close to the West Area, an space outlined by giant burial mounds however missing any seen floor markers. When excavators gently stripped away the topsoil, distinct round constructions materialized from the dust.
A 2,000-Yr-Previous Thriller
“One of many circles reveals traces of 15 stones which have been eliminated,” says Anne Lene Melheim, an archaeologist and professor on the Museum of Cultural Historical past who has studied the Hunn web site for many years.
The Hunn plateau has lengthy been acknowledged as certainly one of Norway’s most spectacular archaeological landscapes. On the well-known South Area, huge standing stones—weighing a whole lot of kilograms every—have marked the panorama for greater than two millennia.
But, these monuments observe guidelines that also baffle fashionable science. The stones are routinely organized in strict, odd-numbered groupings—often 9, 11, 13, or 15 stones per circle. Spanning diameters between 10 and 20 meters, their actual cultural or ritual goal stays elusive.
Anne Lene Melheim on her manner out to the South Area at Hunn. Credit score: Lasse Biørnstad / Science Norway
“They might have made the circle first to be able to plan the development of the burial monument, or it might have fashioned as a result of folks walked in a circle round it,” Melheim suggests relating to the newly revealed rings.
Traditionally, these circles had been seen as meeting websites the place folks gathered to go judgments and make necessary selections.
Nevertheless, many of those circles are concentrated in a single space, and human stays have been present in some, however not all, of them.
Melheim explains that archaeologist Helge Gjessing, who helped excavate components of this web site round 100 years in the past, made no point out of any burial mounds within the space at present being excavated.
Nevertheless, Melheim says he recorded traces of fireplace and huge stones within the area. These observations might confer with the stone circles at present being uncovered.
This means there might by no means have been burial mounds right here, and that the standing stones had been eliminated way back.
Traces Of Historical Lives
Along with the stone alignments, the workforce—which incorporates researcher Jakob Jan Edvin Kile-Vesik—has recognized a number of potential graves tucked throughout the newly uncovered constructions. Whereas these options have but to bear full scientific evaluation, previous digs at Hunn have revealed a mixture of cremated human stays and bone fragments resting quietly between the stone perimeters.
An instance of among the finds from the location. These are spurs {that a} rider might have worn on their toes. They date from the Early Iron Age and had been documented within the Fifties. (Picture: Mårten Teigen / Museum of Cultural Historical past)
The broader panorama bears the marks of steady human presence stretching again roughly 3,500 to 1,000 years, bridging the Bronze Age and the Iron Age.
See additionally: Extra Archaeology Information
Though components of the world later turned burial grounds, the location had been in use for a number of thousand years prior.
The most recent excavation uncovered quite a few cooking pits and constructing stays, demonstrating in depth human exercise on the web site over an extended interval.
Lengthy after the primary circles had been raised, generations returned to the identical soil to bury their lifeless and carry out rituals now misplaced to time.
Supply: Science in Norway
Written by Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com Workers Author
