Stonehenge gets some well-deserved attention when it comes to British archeology. Between its age, altar stone’s epic journey, and potential origin as a community building initiative, it has a storied history. However, another site in southwest England called Flagstones might be even older. New radiocarbon dating and human remains, red deer antlers, and charcoal found in the area puts this ancient stone circle near Dorchester at 3,200 BCE–roughly 300 years older than Stonehenge. The findings are detailed in a study published March 6 in the journal Antiquity and the team believes that the Flagstones may have served as a prototype for later monuments.
First discovered during highway construction in the county of Dorset during the 1980s, Flagstones was formed of a 328 feet (100 meter) diameter circular ditch of intersecting pits. Archaeologists have found at least four burials in the enclosure pit–three children who had not been cremated and one adult who had been cremated. The remains of three other partially cremated adults were found elsewhere. Initially, its similarities to Stonehenge had archeologists and historians assuming that Flagstones must be of a similar date.
“Flagstones is an unusual monument; a perfectly circular ditched enclosure, with burials and cremations associated with it,” Susan Greaney, a study co-author and University of Exeter archeologist, said in a statement. “In some respects, it looks like monuments that come earlier, which we call causewayed enclosures, and in others, it looks a bit like things that come later that we call henges. But we didn’t know where it sat between these types of monuments – and the revised chronology places it in an earlier period than we expected.”
For this new effort to age the stones, a team from Historic England and the University of Exeter joined forces with ETH Zürich in Switzerland and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. They took 23 new radiocarbon measurements and combined that data with some of the archaeological finds in the area.
[ Related: British Iron Age burial grounds reveal women had power. ]
The early Neolithic activity–including the digging of pits–took place around 3650 BCE. After several centuries passed, the circular ditched enclosure was created around 3200 BCE. The burials were also placed within that circle immediately afterwards. A later burial of a young adult male under a large sarsen stone at the center enclosure happened roughly 1,000 years after its initial use.
“The chronology of Flagstones is essential for understanding the changing sequence of ceremonial and funeral monuments in Britain,” said Greaney. “The ‘sister’ monument to Flagstones is Stonehenge, whose first phase is almost identical, but it dates to around 2900 BC. Could Stonehenge have been a copy of Flagstones? Or do these findings suggest our current dating of Stonehenge might need revision?”
Additionally, this new look at Flagstones also reveals some connections to other significant sites, including Llandygái ‘Henge’ A in Gwynedd, Wales, and some locations in Ireland. Similar burial practices and artifacts have been uncovered in both places. According to the team, these findings show how interconnected some Neolithic communities were across Britain and beyond.
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