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A monumental prehistorical henge has been unearthed in easterly England during mining originally focused on get hold trace of an Anglo - Saxon recluse , a recent study show .
The site , known as Anchor Church Field and situate near Crowland Abbey in Lincolnshire , is thought to have host ceremonial and sanctified activities on and off from the time the henge was erected in the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age ( 2900 to 1600 B.C. ) until the 15th C .
An aerial view of the excavation site at Crowland, in eastern England’s Lincolnshire county.
Notably , archaeologist found evidence of job inside the henge date to around the 7th hundred — including ceramic , two pearl comb and glass fragments from elite drinking vessel — when England was under Anglo - Saxon rule .
" We roll in the hay that many prehistoric monuments were reused by the Anglo - Saxons , but to find a henge — especially one that was previously unknown — occupied in this way is really quite rare , " field of study co - authorDuncan Wright , a lecturer in medieval archaeology at Newcastle University in England , enunciate in astatement .
The digging revealed that the henge — a circular monument of upright stones — was adapt into a quality circle in the Middle Bronze Age ( 1600 to 1200 B.C. ) and was smother by interment mound . It then sat abandoned for several centuries , but the prehistorical earthwork remained engrave in the grime , grant to the study , which was release March 26 in theJournal of Field Archaeology .
One of two Anglo-Saxon bone combs unearthed from inside a prehistoric henge at Crowland.
Wright and study co - authorHugh Willmott , a aged lecturer in European diachronic archaeology at the University of Sheffield in England , discovered the henge by opportunity while searching for an eighth - century hermitage believed to be buried beneath Anchor Church Field .
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Local tradition holds that in A.D. 700 , a Christian monastic describe Guthlac sought out the spot and became a solitudinarian , pick out a biography of devotion and abstinence smother by what was then marshland . According to a spell score from the meter titled " Vita Sancti Guthlaci " ( lifespan of Saint Guthlac ) , Guthlac ’s story and the uncovering of his intact body 12 month after his demise in A.D. 714 inspire a small conventual cult and pilgrimages to present - day Crowland , as well as the construction of Crowland Abbey in the tenth century .
Although the Anglo - Saxon objects found inside the henge can not be linked to Guthlac with certainty , the monumental internet site would have been " an obvious choice for solitudinarian to remould into a novel shape of Christian ' holy island , ' " the researchers write in the field of study .
The surprises did not terminate there . Within the henge , the archaeologist also uncovered an elaborate hall and chapel service complex dating to the 12th one C . The complex — which was belike built by the abbot of Crowland to reverence St. Guthlac and his sis St. Pega , who was herself a celebrated hermit in the region — may have been used to put up high - position pilgrims and other elite Edgar Albert Guest .
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The discovery sheds fresh Light Within on a previously dig up , Harlan Fisk Stone - lined pit settle directly in front of the hall and chapel service , as archaeologist now opine it may have held a range pole or large cross .
" It ’s clear that even in later years Anchor Church Field continued to be see as a special place worthy of veneration , " Willmott said in the statement . " Guthlac and Pega were very important figures in the early Christian history of England , so it is enormously exciting that we ’ve been capable to limit the chronology of what is clear a historically pregnant site . "
Historical source signal that the hall and chapel complex had fallen into wrecking by the fifteenth century as agriculture took over the land around Anchor Church Field and pilgrimage wane with the advent of the English Reformation . But the site retained its consecrated aura until the 18th century , according to the discipline , as the proprietor of a nearby bungalow is say to have visited it every Sunday and dropped to his knees in " enthusiastic veneration for a hermit . "
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