‘Stonehenge in Germany’ provides horrific evidence of the sacrifice of women and children

Reconstruction of the 4,300-year-old Po?mmelte wall. Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Arch?ologie Sachsen Anhalt (Saxony State Office for Antiquities Management and Archaeology); Photographer Juraj Lipt?k)

Children, teenagers and women found at the newly excavated "German Stonehenge" The broken, shattered bones may be evidence of ancient human sacrifice, a new study finds.

Archaeologists have discovered a pit buried next to an ax head at an archaeological site near Pumelt Fractured skulls and ribs, a drinking fountain, butchered animal bones and an oak tree (stone mill) in a German village about 85 miles (136 kilometers) southwest of Berlin.

The victims' final moments were gruesome; they appeared to have been thrown into a pit and at least one teenager's hands were tied together, study leader Andres Pazil said, southwest Germany Archaeologist at the Baden-Württemberg State Office for the Protection of Historic Monuments. A Stone Age skull found on a wooden pile may have been the victim of an assault or attack, Spazil said. But Spazier said human sacrifice seemed more likely, given the absence of an adult man buried there and the ritual, broken artifacts buried there. Stonehenge in Germany, like the Great Stonehenge in England Like the henge, the site near Pumelt is a stone circle - a circular prehistoric monument built of wood or stone structure. The Ganges has several concentric circles, the largest of which is approximately 380 feet (115 meters) in diameter. It was discovered in 1991, just two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, on a plane flying overhead. However, Spazier said no deeper digging has been done until recently. This photo shows a reconstruction of the ruins of Pumelt, a site built by ancient people using wooden pillars. (Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Arch?ologie Sachsen Anhalt) (Saxony State Office for Cultural Heritage Management and Archaeology); Photographer Juraj Lipt?k)

Ancient people in the transition period from the Late Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age, Monuments similar to those on the Ganges were built and used from about 2300 BCE to 2050 BCE, when it was destroyed - most likely ceremonially.

Archaeologists suspected a ceremonial end because they found the monument's wooden post holes filled with artifacts. One of the trenches was filled with ash, likely from burned wooden posts that were from the same period as the artifacts, Spazil said.

"It appears that toward the end of the main occupation period, around 2050 B.C., they extracted the wooden pillars, "placed the offerings on the pillars, probably burned all the wood, and then placed It shoveled into the ditch," Spazier told LiveScience. So, they shut down all the features. It was still visible in the ground, but just a shovel dent. Tombs and Solstice

Monuments Before and even after the destruction, ancient people buried 13 dead people there. On the east side of the Ganges, archaeologists found burials of men aged 17 to 30 years old, far away from possible human sacrifices, Spazil said. One group differs in that there is no evidence of injuries on the bodies and, strangely, the burials are very simple and contain no artifacts. One male body was even dated, Spazil said. 1900 B.C., long after the Ganges was destroyed. The body's bones were not in a normal anatomical position, suggesting this was the individual's second burial, Spazier added.

[Photo: Carved human skulls found at ritual site]

These appear to have been privileged individuals, as their bodies were buried facing east on the east side of the fence, possibly reflecting "death and day" out the connection, symbolizing belief in reincarnation or the afterlife, Spazil and study co-researcher Fran?ois Bottoms, an archaeologist of Martin Luther