Found a few kilometres from Stonehenge, the graves of the Amesbury
Archer and the Boscombe Bowmen date to the 24th century BC and are two
of the earliest Bell Beaker graves in Britain. The Boscombe Bowmen is a
collective burial and the Amesbury Archer is a single burial but isotope
analyses suggest that both were the graves of incomers to Wessex. The
objects placed in both graves have strong continental connections and
the metalworking tool found in the grave of the Amesbury Archer may
explain why his mourners afforded him one of the most well-furnished
burials yet found in Europe. This excavation report contains a series of
wide-ranging studies and scientific analyses by an array of experts and
a discussion of the graves within their British and continental European
contexts.