Boscombe Bowmen
The Boscombe Bowmen is the name given by archaeologists to a group of early Bronze Age people found in a shared burial at Boscombe Down in Amesbury near Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England.
Discovery
The burials were found in 2003 during roadworks being carried out on behalf of Qinetiq, the contractor that operates the Boscombe Down military airfield. The site is near a group of houses in Amesbury which are associated with the airfield.The burials
The grave contained the remains of at least nine individuals including several juveniles, five adult males and the cremated remains of an infant. Analysis of the skulls suggests that the men and the teenager were related to each other. The eldest man was buried in a crouched position with the bones of the others scattered around him, and their skulls resting at his feet. They became known as the Bowmen because several flint arrowheads were placed in the grave. Other grave goods included a boar's tusk, a bone toggle, flint tools, and eight Beaker vessels; an unusually high number.The burials are thought to date from around 2500 - 2200 BCE, making them broadly contemporary with the Amesbury Archer who had been found the year before about half a kilometre to the south. The broad date range is an artefact of the ranges of radiocarbon dates for different remains and archaeologists believe the grave was in use over a much shorter timescale of 25–50 years.