The Boy with the Amber Necklace
The remains of the teenager discovered next to a Bronze Age burial mound at Boscombe Down, who has become known as the "Boy with the Amber Necklace," was found in 2005, about 5km south-east of Stonehenge but does not seem to have been widely reported at the time with the recent press release giving the impression it is a new archaeological discovery. [1]
However, what is new is the results of recent analysis of the tooth enamel of the teenager indicated that he grew up around the Mediterranean Sea placing him amongst the group of people known to have travelled long distances to visit Stonehenge, joining the Boscombe Bowmen, perhaps a 'band of brothers' from a collective Bronze Age grave. Tooth enamel analysis of the Bowmen suggests these people could have come from Wales or Brittany, if not further afield. Analysis of tooth enamel of the Amesbury Archer, discovered around 5km from Stonehenge, indicated that he probably spent his childhood in the German Alpine region before travelling to ancient Wessex.Jane Evans of the British Geological Survey said of the teenager, "He's around 14 or 15 years old and buried with this beautiful necklace," adding“the position of his burial, the fact he's near Stonehenge, and the necklace all suggest he's of significant status”. Professor Evans compares Stonehenge in the Bronze Age to Westminster Abbey today - a place where the "great and the good" were buried.
Much significance has been placed on the amber necklace, Dr Andrew Fitzpatrick, of Wessex Archaeology, told BBC News, that such finds are not common and that the teenager was of some importance. Dr Fitzpatrick said, “The beginning of the Bronze Age was a period of great mobility across Europe. People, ideas, objects are all moving very fast for a century or two but at the time when the boy with the amber necklace was buried, there are really no new technologies coming in [to Britain]... We need to turn to look at why groups of people - because this is a youngster - are making long journeys."
He speculated: "They may be travelling within family groups... They may be coming to visit Stonehenge because it was an incredibly famous and important place, as it is today. But we don't know the answer."
Amber, fossilized tree resin, from the Baltic Sea has been extensively traded since antiquity. The Baltic coast around Königsberg in Lithuanian (formerly Prussia) was the world's leading source of amber. In ancient times Amber was probably collected by hand from coastal regions were it is ripped up from the seabed washed ashore by the tides. It is estimated that about ninety per cent of the world's extractable amber is still located on the Baltic coast.Was the Boy with the Amber Necklace from the Mediterranean?
Contact with the Mediterranean seems certain with the discovery of carvings, mainly of axes and a dagger being recognised on three of the sarsens of Stonehenge in 1953. The shape of the dagger is similar to weapons found far away in southern Greece and today it is generally agreed that it is in the form of a Mycenae dagger. Archaeologists generally consider that the knowledge flow was from Greece to Britain, indeed in the nineteenth century the suggestion was made that Stonehenge was built by Mycenaeans. However, as Stonehenge is much older than the Mycenaean culture the knowledge transmission would seem to be in the other direction; ancient Greek science, including Pythagoras, born around 540 BC, probably originated in Europe - the exact reverse. [2]
According to the British Geological Survey the chemical tests on the teeth of the teenager suggest he grew up around the Mediterranean Sea. This conclusion is reached from analysis of different forms of the elements oxygen and strontium in his tooth enamel which forms in a child's first few years, thereby storing a chemical record of the environment in which the individual grew up. These two chemical elements found in enamel - oxygen and strontium - exist in different forms, or isotopes. The ratios of these isotopes can be use to determine where a person originated; drinking water containing a higher ratio of heavy oxygen (O-18) in warmer climates, to light oxygen (O-16) found in cold climates.
In addition, most rocks carry a small amount of the element strontium and the isotope ratio found in tooth enamel can provide information on the geological setting where an individual grew up. The ratio of strontium 87 and strontium 86 isotopes varies according to local geology.
However, the exact location where the Boy with the Amber Necklace grew up has not yet been determined; all we have to go on is that the oxygen isotope ratio indicates the boy grew up in a significantly warmer climate than Boscombe Down, a climate found for example in the Mediterranean area.
The Boy from Wessex
As part of Salisbury Museum's 150th Anniversary Conference on 2nd October, an archaeological debate entitled 'Solving Stonehenge' was held between leading Stonehenge archaeologists who have all directed work within the Stonehenge landscape over the last 30 years but hold conflicting opinions on the role of the monument. Chaired by Andrew Lawson, the panel consisted of Timothy Darvill, Mike Parker Pearson, Mike Pitts and Julian Richards.
Mike Parker Pearson informed the conference that 'The Boy with the Amber Necklace' is almost certainly NOT from the Mediterranean, despite the press reports this week. Parker Pearson stated the British Geological Survey were initially of the opinion that the oxygen isotope value compared closely with those of the Mediterranean area, and consequently the press release was prepared before the Beaker Isotope Project had reviewed the data, who determined that the teenager sits right in the middle of the Wessex Group. [3]
'The Boy with the Amber Necklace' came from Wessex.
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UPDATE JULY 2012
Since writing this post, over two years ago, I have sought verification of Mike Parker Pearson's comments that the 'Boy with the Amber Necklace' did in fact come from Wessex. I have not found any other source supporting his comments.
However, with the publication of Mike's book Stonehenge: Exploring the Greatest Stone Age Mystery in June 2012, he explains the unusual oxygen isotope signature of the Early Bronze Age skeleton known as the 'boy with the amber necklace'. On page 214, he states:
"....at first glance his oxygen isotope values are much higher than would be expected for anyone living east of Land's End in Cornwall. Yet, when the archaeological scientists compared the results of ALL his isotopes with those of the Beaker People Project's individuals from Wessex, it became clear that he was actually a local, one of many whose origins were on the Wessex chalk. The mystery is why the Wessex chalk-dwellers, and indeed all of the Beaker people in the study, have such high oxygen values relative to the regions where they had grown up. The project has clearly discovered a problem with the calibration. A likely explanation for the unusual values can be traced to what these people were drinking."
Oxygen isotope values are mapped geographically from below-ground water that supplies rivers and streams. However, values of 'processed' water from rainwater, milk, beer or boiled food for example, from these same areas would be quite different and yield significantly higher values than ordinary drinking water. It would appear that people's liquid diet has a major effect on their oxygen isotope values.
Oxygen isotope values are mapped geographically from below-ground water that supplies rivers and streams. However, values of 'processed' water from rainwater, milk, beer or boiled food for example, from these same areas would be quite different and yield significantly higher values than ordinary drinking water. It would appear that people's liquid diet has a major effect on their oxygen isotope values.
Time to Rethink the Beaker Culture
Pre-historians tell us that late in the Neolithic period, c.2500 BC, an influx of people, physically different from the indigenous people, being shorter and more round-headed, from Europe came to settle in the South West of Britain. These newcomers have been called the Beaker People because of the shape of the pottery vessels found in their round barrow graves. They brought metal-working skills with them and buried their dead individually, which until this period had been communal. Originally thought to be invaders but now considered more likely to be immigrants.
Clearly much of the convential wisdom of the Beaker Culture in Britain is wrong as the 'Boy with the Amber Necklace' being from Wessex demonstrates. We really should not assume the spread of a culture is evidence of invasion or migration; it is time to reconsider the Beaker People in Britain.
Clearly much of the convential wisdom of the Beaker Culture in Britain is wrong as the 'Boy with the Amber Necklace' being from Wessex demonstrates. We really should not assume the spread of a culture is evidence of invasion or migration; it is time to reconsider the Beaker People in Britain.
Notes:
1. 'Stonehenge boy was from the Med'. BBC News 28 September 2010
& British Geological Survey Press Release 28 September 2010.
2. Pythagorean geometry is seen in many megalithic constructions of the British Isles.
See: The Apollo Code – Anne Macaulay.
3. Report on the Solving Stonehenge Debate.
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