Ancient village found near Stonehenge

British archaeologists have found the remains of a 4,600-year-old village where the elusive builders of Stonehenge may have resided.

The researchers said Tuesday that they had unearthed eight of as many as 25 houses at Durrington Walls about three kilometres from Stonehenge and that the village includes a version of the stone monument made of wood.

Mike Parker Pearson told a news briefing organized by the National Geographic Society that the village had been carbon-dated to 2,600 BC around the same time that Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid in Egyptwere built.

The Sheffield University archaeology professor noted that the houses were almost identical to stone buildings on Orkney Island off the Scotland coast.

"Clearly, this is a place that was of enormous importance," Julian Thomas of Manchester University said, observing that Stonehenge and Durrington Walls both have roads that link them to the Avon River, suggesting the residents travelled back and forth.

The scientists said Stonehenge, where there have been an estimated 250 cremations, was a cemetery and memorial site for the people of Durrington Walls.

The square, wood houses with walls about four metres long appeared to once contain bed frames and a dresser or some type of storage unit.

Stone tools, animal bones, arrowheads and other artifacts including the remains of pigs were also found in the village. It appears the pigs were slain at around nine months of age, suggesting they were part of a winter festival, according to Parker Pearson.

Stonehenge faces the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset, and the wood version in Durrington Walls faced the midwinter sunrise and midsummer sunset.

Two of the structures that Thomas found were removed from the others and did not contain any of the household debris and garbage found in the rest of them. That might indicate they were used for religious rituals or were the homes of community leaders.

The National Geographic Society, Arts and Humanities Research Council, English Heritage and Wessex Archaeology funded the research.