New Stonehenge Discovery | National Geographic

a few hundred yards away up the bank
along a ridge outside the Durrington
henge the team makes a dramatic
discovery
Parker Pearson believes the River Avon
was the starting point of a journey a
journey that sends the spirits of the
dead to join their ancestors at
Stonehenge now he has new evidence to
back that claim
high on the ridge overlooking the river
the team has unearthed a series of
mysterious holes in the ground they’ve
asked much too big to be the post holes
of a house one possible explanation is
that they held platforms for the dead
we know that in addition to people being
cremated at death that in some cases
bodies were actually exposed and we may
have stretchers that actually supported
platforms on which bodies were were set
out in order to decay in order to be
exposed Spacely turning flesh bodies
into collections of dry bone the holes
are strong evidence for Parker Pearson
that the river played a central role in
their rituals of death the most exciting
thing I think of this season has been
the giant timber buildings up on top of
the ridge and those are really quite
extraordinary they would have been built
of monstrously big timbers but the fact
that there they are along that ridge
line overlooking this part of the river
that really shows to us once and for all
that it’s this bit of the river that’s
so important for