Life before Stonehenge: The hunter-gatherer occupation and environment of Blick Mead revealed by sedaDNA, pollen and spores.

ABSTRACT: The Neolithic and Bronze Age construction and habitation of the Stonehenge Landscape has been extensively explored in previous research. However, little is known about the scale of pre-Neolithic activity and the extent to which the later monumental complex occupied an 'empty' landscape. There has been a long-running debate as to whether the monumental archaeology of Stonehenge was created in an uninhabited forested landscape or whether it was constructed in an already partly open area of pre-existing significance to late Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. This is of significance to a global discussion about the relationship between incoming farmers and indigenous hunter-gatherer societies that is highly relevant to both Old and New World archaeology. Here we present the results of plant sedaDNA,

SUBMITTER: Hudson SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9045597 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature