The results of one of the largest DNA studies yet conducted show that soon after Stonehenge was built, Britain was ‘invaded’ by new arrivals from the Continent.
Until about 4,500 years ago, Britain was inhabited by neolithic farmers who had spread from Spain and Brittany. They grew cereals , herded sheep, goats and cattle and built vast monumnets such as Stonehenge. Then things started to change. People began forging tools and weapons from copper, then bronze. They buried their dead in new kinds of tombs. They began making bell-shaped beakers from clay. The mean who did this work were not those who built Stonehenge. It seems that between 2450BC and 2000BC the native population the native population was overwhelmed by new arrivals from the continent.
You may already have heard of Archer man who was buried near Stonehenge a few decades after the stone circle was built. His teeth show beyond doubt that he hailed from the Alps, one of the new wave of arrivals, possibly.
