Global Courant
Archaeologists have discovered a 4,000-year-old holy site consisting of canals and tombs in the central Netherlands.
They believe that this place served the same purpose as Stonehengea large prehistoric site discovered in England.
Like the famous stone circle in southern England, which is larger than at least three football fields and built of earth and wood, it is believed to have been built to connect with the sun at the solstices.
Archaeologists found animal skeletons, human skulls or a bronze spearhead.
“The largest mound served as a solar calendar, similar to the famous stones of Stonehenge in England,” the statement said, according to CNN.
“This sanctuary must have been very significant where people kept records of special days of the year, performed rituals and buried their dead,” according to the archaeologists’ statement.
A piece of brass
During the excavation of the site in 2017, archaeologists also discovered several graves. One grave was of a woman buried with a glass bead from Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq.
It is the oldest bead ever found in the Netherlands and researchers said it proved that people from this area were in contact with people almost 5,000 kilometers away.
An illustration of what scholars think the country would have looked like at the time
It took archaeologists six years to research more than a million objects dating from the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman Empire and Middle Ages.
Some of the discoveries will be exhibited in a local museum in Tiel and in the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities.
Global Courantl
