Stonehenge...

Archaeologists studying Stonehenge have uncovered a village of small homes which may have housed the builders of the mysterious stone circle. The houses, located at a site known as Durrington Walls, also include a wooden replica of Stonehenge. Eight of the homes have been excavated and according to Mike Parker of the National Geographic Society, there may be many as twenty-five houses. The carbon dating of the village sets it at 2600 B.C., around the same time the circle was built. Julian Thomas of Manchester University noted that both Stonehenge and Durrington Walls have avenues connecting them to the Avon River, indicating a pattern of movement between the sites. "Clearly, this is a place that was of enormous importance," he said of the new find. Stone tools, animal bones, arrowheads and other artifacts were uncovered in the village. Remains of pigs indicated they were about nine months old when killed, which would mark a midwinter festival. Two of the houses, found by Thomas, were separate from theothers and may have been the dwellings of community leaders or perhaps were cult houses used for religious rituals.
Durrington appears "very much a place of the living," Parker Pearson said. In contrast, no one ever lived at the stone circle at Stonehenge, which was the largest cemetery in Britain of its time. Stonehenge is thought to contain 250 cremations.