Stonehenge's builders found?

Remains of a huge settlement have been found that could have housed the hundreds of construction workers needed to build nearby Stonehenge.Archaeologists also unearthed the largest piles of animals bones ever found at a Neolithic village in the UK, suggesting it was also the place to go for a party.Excavations have unearthed hundreds of well-preserved houses with imprints of beds and wooden dressers still present on the clay floors.The finds were made at Durrington Walls, a site not far from the legendary Salisbury Plain monument, where a massive timber circle more than a thousand feet across once stood.Experts have never found evidence of human habitation near Stonehenge before.The homes have been radiocarbon dated to 2600-2500 BC, the same period Stonehenge was built.Archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson from Sheffield University said: "English Heritage's magnetometry survey had detected dozens of hearths - the whole valley appears full of houses. In what were houses, we have excavated the outlines on the floors of box beds and wooden dressers or cupboards."His team have also excavated an imposing stone-paved avenue between Durrington Walls's timber circle and the River Avon. The 90-foot wide pathway mirrors the one that links Stonehenge with the same river.But while Stonehenge's avenue is lined up with the midsummer solstice sunrise Durrington's is aligned with that day's sunset.© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.

ITN | February 1, 2007

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