Stonehenge May Have Been Burial Ground for Elite Families, Researchers Say

The world's most famous prehistoric monument, Stonehenge, may have started as a giant burial ground for elite families around 3,000 B.C., British researchers said Saturday.

Archaeologists revealed that over 50,000 cremated bone fragments, of 63 individuals buried at Stonehenge have been excavated, according to researchers from University College London. Scientists observed 56 Aubrey holes that enclose the existing henge.

"These were men, women, children, so presumably family groups," University College London professor Mike Parker Pearson was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.

Pearson said that this was during the Neolithic era. He also stated that the ancient settlement of Durrington Walls had 1,000 dwellings.

He noted that tools, pots and the large amount of animal remnants is adequate to prove that Durrington Wells was a seasonal labor camp, which was operated during the construction of Stonehenge.

He said, "It is not so much a temple, it is a monument and it seems the big theme is unification ... Stonehenge gets visited at certain points, people build and then go away".

Evidence gathered during an earlier excavation of a settlement located near Stonehenge suggest people came from as far as Scotland to build the monument over a number of years, the Guardian said.

The team, which included academics from more than a dozen British universities, also put forth some theories about the purpose of the second Stonehenge -- the monument still standing in the countryside in southern England today.