Amesbury Archer
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Amesbury Archer (dubbed the "King of Stonehenge" in the British press, although there is no specific connection to the famous site) is an early Bronze Age man dating to around 2500-2100 BC, whose grave was discovered in May 2002, at Amesbury near Stonehenge. His grave is of particular importance because of its connections with Continental Europe and early copper smelting technology. Five funerary pots of the type associated with the "Beaker culture" were found with him. His grave had the greatest number of artifacts ever found in a British beaker burial. A second male was interred nearby.
Besides the beaker vessels, the gravesite revealed: three tiny copper knives, more for show than for violent use; 16 barbed flint arrowheads; a kit of flint-knapping and metalworking tools, including cushion stones that functioned as a kind of portable anvil and that suggests he was a coppersmith; and some boar's tusks. On his forearm was a black Stone wrist-guard. A similar red wrist-guard was by his knees. With the second wrist-guard was a shale belt ring and a pair of gold hair ornaments (the earliest gold objects ever found in England) which may suggest he was buried with a second costume.
Research using oxygen isotope analysis in his tooth enamel identified the origin of the man as being a cool region of Central Europe. An eroded hole in his jaw showed that in life he had suffered from an abscess and his missing left kneecap that he had taken a horrific injury that left him with a painful lingering bone infection.
He is believed to have been one of the earliest metalworkers in Britain. He is nicknamed the "archer" because of the many arrowheads that were among the artifacts buried with him.
The Amesbury Archer supports interpreters who claim that the diffusion of Beaker Culture pottery was the result of population movement rather than just the widespread adoption of an artifact 'package'.
[edit] References
- Fitzpatrick, A.P. 2003. "The Amesbury Archer" in Current Archaeology 184, pp 146-152
- Stone, R. 2005. "Mystery Man of Stonehenge" in Smithsonian Magazine August 2005, pp 62–7.
